


Some Semblance of Humanity

by headfirstfrhalos



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Bad Decisions, Blood Drinking, Blood Sharing, Blood and Gore, Brain Damage, Cannibalism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Morality, Dubious Science, Electrocution, Existential Angst, Fake Science, Frankenstein AU, Gen, M/M, Mad Science, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Jargon, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Obsessive Behavior, Seizures, Surgery, Temporary Character Death, Unethical Experimentation, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, lots of bad science there folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-08 20:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12872478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headfirstfrhalos/pseuds/headfirstfrhalos
Summary: Josh is killed in a mugging gone wrong, and Tyler, desperate not to lose his friend, brings him back to life with macabre medical knowledge. His resurrection has unintended consequences.





	1. Contre Dieu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is: the most morally abhorrent story i have written (so far). i may be two months late for the appropriate holiday but that's never stopped me. merry shitscram

Perhaps it was a little too late to realize that going out for a midnight walk in downtown Columbus was a bad idea. Two men surrounded them. One had a gun.

"Hand it over," the first one said.

Tyler and Josh shared a glance before reaching for their pockets.

"Are we doing this?" Tyler asked.

"Just go with it, it's the safest thing to do--"

The second man jabbed his gun at Josh. "Just do it. These guns are loaded."

Josh, always so anxious, jerked back when he cocked his gun, and the mugger, startled by his movement, pulled the trigger.

Tyler watched in horror. He saw the glint of the metal under the street light as the gun kicked back from the shot, and the bullet was too fast to see but he saw how Josh’s body rocked when it ripped through him. He saw Josh collapse against the rough brick wall, eyes glazed as his body tried to make sense of his wounds. He could smell the gunpowder.

Tyler stared, gaping at Josh before finally managing to find his voice.

"Josh," he whispered. "Josh!"

The men swore and ran off, realizing the gravity of their mistake. Tyler didn't care. They didn’t matter. Josh was hurt. Josh was _dying_. He knelt over his best friend, trying to assess the damage as well as he could in the dark.

“Tyler?” Josh asked, dazed. "I got shot." 

He was in shock, Tyler was sure of that. Josh clutched his stomach, his grey shirt turning black where he was bleeding. Tyler reached out to Josh as gently as he could, wincing when Josh hissed in pain as he tried to pick him up.

“Josh? Josh, are you okay?” he asked, voice wobbling.

 _Jesus Christ_ , he thought _. He just got shot, of course he isn’t alright._

Josh only blinked at him, and his harsh breathing filled the night air. Tyler’s eyes fixed on the NASA logo of his shirt as his chest rose and fell. That was his favorite shirt, he realized, hysterical. Now it was ruined.

He could clean up the blood. He could get the stain out of Josh’s shirt and sew up the hole in his stomach and everything would be okay.

“I think I'm dying,” Josh sighed. “Tyler.”

“Josh?” he asked, trying not to shake him. “What is it?”

Josh breathed in and out and his brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to form more words. Oceans of hot blood were spilling onto his clothes and soaking into his skin, but Tyler couldn’t care less. He held Josh close, feeling the warmth of Josh’s body and the frantic hammering of his own heart as he watched Josh die.

Josh’s breaths were shallow and faint. “I…”

His arm twitched, trying to reach his face. Josh went still. He said no more.

Tyler looked at his eyes, saw the glassiness about them that came with death, and his hand came up to stroke his face, feeling his cheek (still warm), his chin (stubbly). Josh didn’t stir.

“Josh?” Tyler asked, chest tight. “Josh?”

There was a strange, harsh sound filling the alley. Tyler realized that it was the sound was his own panicked breathing.

"Josh?!" 

Desperate, Tyler looked around. There was no one that could help him. It was too late for anyone else to help but Tyler himself. Because Tyler had a way of making things not-dead. Tyler knew what to do. He needed to get them home and get cleaned up.

Tyler had carried Josh before, but it was harder now that he was so limp and uncooperative. Tyler stuck close to the walls as he walked in the night, trying to ignore the sound of Josh’s shoes dragging against the pavement and the never-ending _drip drip drip_ of his blood from the hole in his torso. He was making a mess.

Tyler’s eyes were unfocused and his mind was foggy, but his legs remembered the way home. He found himself in the lobby of the apartment, bathed in greasy yellow light.

Tyler boarded the elevator, hesitating as he tried to remember which floor he lived on. He’s never going outside with Josh again. Tyler stared at the meter displaying the floor he was passing, hoping that no one would come in and see Josh like this. He didn’t want them to think that it was _he_ who had done this to Josh.

Beneath the confusion was anger. Rage tore through him at the thought that something as mundane as a bullet could kill someone as extraordinary as Josh. He never thought of himself as someone disposed to anger, but Josh was always the exception.

Tyler didn’t want to kill the man who shot Josh. He wanted to prove him wrong. _A gun can’t kill him. He’s far too important for that._

Tyler made it back to his apartment, struggling with the key as he attempted to open the lock and hold Josh at the same time. He kept his eyes away from the body, only allowing himself to feel the faint heat of his still-warm body and the stench of metal and the ache of his shoulders as Josh's body weighed him down. He didn’t want to look at Josh’s face, how pale it must be now that he’s lost so much blood. He’d need some more if he wanted to get better. He'd have to call Mark, who worked at a blood bank.

He finally managed to get the door open and he gently set Josh down on one of his dining chairs as he swept letters and bottles of water off the table. Josh slid down his seat, limp, and Tyler paused several times to adjust his arms and legs before giving up and laying him out on the still-cluttered dining table. Josh was still bleeding, though the gush had slowed to a trickle. Tyler would have to replace his rug now, and the white tablecloth. That was okay.

Tyler knew this endeavor would take more than just one night. For now, he’d have to keep him cool until he got everything he needed. He hadn’t been anticipating this.

Tyler’s freezer was full of ice. He took out the dry ice first, carrying it with thick, protective mittens as he hauled the bricks to his bathtub, arranging them so that they lined the bottom and sides of the tub. Then he went back for the regular ice, tearing the bags open with his fingers and dumping its contents in, wincing at the loud clattering the cubes made as they fell into the tub. His back was going to be sore tomorrow, he could feel it.

Tyler returned to the dining room once the ice bath was ready. Should he strip Josh? This wasn’t a problem with the animals he preserved, but Josh deserved some dignity. Tyler picked him up again, dragging him as carefully as he could to the bathroom. The blood was beginning to clot and stink. He’d have to clean him later.

Tyler carefully lowered him into the bathtub as gently as he could, like he was drunk and Tyler was putting him to bed, removing his shoes with the same attitude. He took the last few bags of ice and gently poured them over him, obscuring his body.

Tyler sat down on the toilet lid and studied Josh. His line of work meant he had seen enough corpses that he only felt sorrow at their sorry condition, not horror. And Tyler was absolutely heartbroken. He had never attempted to resurrect a creature he didn't love, and he loved Josh more than anyone or anything else. He didn't know what he'd do with himself if he failed this time. 

Tyler washed off his bloody hands and stripped out of his soiled clothes. He cleaned himself off the best he could in the sink, taking a small washcloth and letting the dried blood flake off of his skin. He changed into his pajamas and pulled out his phone as he sat on the toilet lid, keeping watch over Josh. 

Heshould call the police. He should tell them that Josh had been shot and died, that he needed a coroner to come and take him away and pump him full of embalming fluids and dress him up in a nice suit and then bury him deep in the ground, never to see the light of day again. He really, really, should.

But Tyler was bad at letting things to. 

He called Mark. He needed blood.

“Ugh, Tyler, what is it?" Mark groaned after many rings. "It’s two in the morning.”

“Hi, Mark,” Tyler said, and he realized how hoarse his voice was. “I’m really sorry to call you right now, I know, but it’s an emergency.”

“What happened?”

Mark still sounded groggy, but Tyler could hear the rustling in the background as he got up.

“I need blood,” Tyler said. “Any kind is fine, so long as it’s human.”

Mark paused. “Tyler, what happened? Are you okay? Do you need me to get you an ambulance?”

“It’s not me, Mark. It’s Josh.”

Mark didn't respond.

"Mark?" Tyler asked.

“Tyler, what happened?” he finally demanded.

His voice was shaking, and Tyler realized how many more people he’d help if he saved Josh.

“Just a mugger,” Tyler said, starting to untie his apron. He’d have to wash it in the sink since the tub was currently occupied. “He got shot. I couldn’t save him in time.”

“Wait. He's--"

"Dead."

Mark breathed in, then out.

"What the fuck... what the fuck? Does that mean you’re gonna try to—“

“Yeah.”

“Tyler. I know this is your whole _thing_ , but do you realize what you're doing? This isn't like picking up roadkill. You're doing this to a _person_."

"You think I don't know that?" Tyler snapped. "Mark, it's _Josh_. You're friends with him, too. Don't you want him back?"

Mark spluttered. "Yes," he said, "I do. But you're really pushing the envelope here. What if something goes wrong?"

"That's a risk I'm willing to take. He didn't deserve this, Mark, you don't understand. He just died. For no reason."  

He heard Mark sigh over the speaker. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’re probably in shock and you’re definitely insane, but I’ll humor you. For your sake. You’re a genius and if anyone could do it, it would be you. I know Josh’s blood type is AB. How much do you need?”

“Enough for two people.”

“Christ, that’s a lot. Okay. I’ll do it. But you owe me.”

“Of course. I have money."

Tyler hung up before the conversation could continue. He only befriended Mark because he worked at a blood bank, but he did come to like him for much more than that. He was friendly, and talented with a camera, and he kept Tyler’s secrets because a part of him was morbidly curious with Tyler’s experiments despite himself.

Tyler sighed. Josh didn’t hear him.

“Time to clean up,” he said to no one, thinking of all the blood he tracked inside his building. He was damned lucky that the landlord was too sleazy to install any security cameras.

* * *

 

Mark arrived at Tyler’s door the next afternoon. Tyler was dozing on the sofa, exhausted. Josh had gone through several more bags of ice overnight. He had left the drain open for the melted water to drain, and the sound of the water trickling away kept him up, as well as his periodic alarms to wake up and add more ice to the tub.

“Wow, you look like shit,” Mark said. He was pushing the box along the floor, having grown tired from carrying it all the way to Tyler’s apartment. “And jeez, it reeks in here. Open a window or something before someone starts wondering who died. Oh—”

“I know,” Tyler said, cutting him off and handing him an envelope of money once meant for med school. “I kind of had a rough night. And I didn’t notice the smell. I guess I got used to it. I’ll do that later, not that anyone in this building really cares. The dude in 203 was dead for a week before anyone actually called.”

Mark shuddered. “Oh, God. I don’t know why you live in this shithole. Anyways, there’s twenty-five bags in here,” he said, sliding it across the floor. Tyler hoisted it up, struggling to carry it to his kitchen counter.  

“Thank you, Mark,” Tyler said. “Do you want to stay and watch me work?”

Mark’s face twisted. “Uh.”

"Or don't," Tyler backpedaled. "I know most people aren't used to seeing bodies. But you're free to look at him right now. He's in the bathtub."

"You're right," Mark said. "I'm not. And no thank you, I just-- I gotta go."

Mark waved hastily and left, looking nervous. Tyler shut the door and locked it immediately after. Tyler didn’t think this was wrong, but he knew it was against the law. He wasn’t stupid.

Tyler took a small knife and opened the cardboard box of blood. It had warmed a little during the trip to Tyler’s apartment, and he went to his refrigerator and adjusted the temperature to forty Fahrenheit-– the standard temperature for storing blood. He took the time to reorganize his fridge as well—there wasn’t enough room inside for the blood with all that food in the way. 

The box fit after pulling out three bell peppers, a half-empty carton of eggs, a box of orange juice, and two stalks of broccoli. Tyler cracked open an energy drink and downed it in a few large gulps. He had much more important work to do, and he needed to be alert and focused.

Josh had finally stopped bleeding. The ice was tinged red. Tyler hadn’t had an opportunity to inspect the damage that had been done, but Tyler knew from its position that it had probably ripped through his stomach and several other important organs. He might have to extract the bullet too, if it hadn’t exited his body.

Tyler retrieved his kit before entering the bathroom. The room smelled strongly of iron. Tyler wrinkled his nose and turned on the fan. He retrieved his plastic apron where he had left it on the towel rack to dry last night. He had never used it for something as important as this, and his hands shook as he tied the vinyl sheet around his body, looping it over the neck. His gloves and goggles were in the cabinet under the sink.

“Okay, Josh,” Tyler said, trying to calm himself as he brushed the ice cubes off of Josh’s body, revealing his pale, stiff corpse. Tyler had no choice but to cut Josh’s shirt off. Rigor mortis had set in long ago, and he wouldn't be able to maneuver it off him without breaking his arms. He’d have to massage the stiffness out of him later.

“Sorry,” he whispered to Josh’s corpse as he took a pair of scissors and begin to cut the blood-soaked fabric away. He’d get Josh another NASA shirt if this worked. Sure, it wouldn’t be the same as the original, but sometimes, the replacement was good enough.

Josh’s chest was pale, save for the ugly purple splotch where the kinetic force of the bullet had bruised the area around the entrance wound, and Tyler couldn’t help but sigh as he stared at the horrific way the bullet had ripped its way through his right side. He took a large alcohol wipe and dragged it over his skin, cleaning away the blood and bits of gore surrounding the fatal wound. He retrieved his scalpel and reminded himself to make a big cut because Josh was much bigger than the dead dogs and cats he had worked with in years prior.

White skin gave way to yellow fat gave way to red muscle and pink organs, and Tyler, unsure of whether he should be reverent or disgusted, parted the abdominal wall with his fingers to reveal his organs, tender and soft and hemorrhaged. Tyler’s stomach surged with dismay at the sight.

His stomach, a part of his large intestine, and a kidney was ruptured. The kidney was why Josh had bled out quickly-- the bullet had torn through the artery there. His digestive organs would be easy—he had plenty of dissolvable thread, but his kidney was almost completely obliterated and he couldn't see any shards of metal or the bullet itself. It must have torn straight through him, which would mean a whole other world of troubles. He couldn't turn him over right now, but he knew he would see a hideous exit wound if he looked.

Tyler gently began to stitch up the tear in his intestine with a small, curved needle. Ideally, he’d clear out the contents of his digestive system, but he had no way of doing so without cutting Josh open even further. He wasn’t too keen on seeing his digested lunches, either. Josh was healthy. Tyler could give him laxatives to clear his bowels if he ever ran the risk of becoming septic.

Tyler couldn’t help but glance up at Josh’s face every few minutes, as if Josh would sit up and look at Tyler and the great big hole in his stomach and start screaming. It was so strange to see him so still; he got the same feeling when he operated on the pigeon that had lived on his balcony for some years before succumbing to disease. He hated it.

He sat up straight and stretched, listening to his back crack several times. He had been sitting on the toilet seat for nearly an hour as he carefully pulled the gashes back together. He wished he had an assistant or even an entire team of surgeons to help him like a real doctor.

He repaired his stomach next. It was a bit more slippery than his intestines, but Tyler didn’t dare grip it in order to get a better angle to sew it up. He just squinted and prayed that three years of medical school was enough.

Tyler checked his ribs for fractures next. Hairlines were too small to be detected and wouldn’t be much of an issue besides being mildly painful. He did detect a break in the lowest rib, the one closest to his kidney. That would be better off being set through an incision in the back rather than trying to reach it through his recently-repaired organs. He’d be able to take out the kidney too, since Tyler doubted it could be saved.

Tyler decided to take a break before sewing up his front and flipping him over. His back and neck hurt, and his eyes were strained again. He peeled off his gloves and goggles and hung up his apron, hardly stained thanks to his careful cuts, on the towel rack. He pressed his fists into his eyes, trying to get rid of the strain. He had a lot more close work to do and he couldn’t let his eyes start crossing now.

He realized that he needed to eat.

He headed off to the kitchen to make himself a quick sandwich. He took ham and cheese and mustard and tossed in a few shreds of bell pepper for the hell of it. It didn’t taste all that great, but his tongue had absorbed the stench of blood and alcohol and the food cleared it away.

He looked out the window as he ate. The sun was setting. Tyler didn’t like the longer nights that came with fall time, but it meant more time to watch bad movies with Josh and huddle under the blankets together. They could have that again, if Tyler was careful and smart.

He checked his phone. There was a message from Mark.

 

_How’s the Frankenstein thing going?_

Sent by Mark at 3:54 PM

_It’s going well. But I have to remove one of his kidneys. There was no shrapnel or any bullet, so I'm going to have to work on his exit wound on top of it. I sewed up his stomach and a part of his large intestine. I’m going to flip him over and repair a fractured rib and take out the damaged kidney._

Sent by Tyler at 6:03 PM

 

Mark replied very quickly like he had been waiting.

_Good. Hey, if this whole thing works, what are you even going to do? I mean, bringing someone back from the dead is, like, the holy grail of medicine. Are you going to tell anyone?_

Sent by Mark at 6:05 PM

 

_No. There’s a lot of people out there who ought to stay dead. Imagine if I told everyone how I did it and someone brought the President back if he got assassinated. This shouldn’t be done for political reasons. Only for love._

Sent by Tyler at 6:08 PM

 

_Fair enough. You’re very romantic for a mad scientist._

Sent by Mark at 6:09 PM

 

_Well, I think that’s a good thing. And I’m not a mad scientist—I’m just bad at letting things go._

Sent by Tyler at 6:11 PM.

 

He went back to work. He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and put on his goggles and apron again, feeling his muscles complain when he returned to his old position.

He sewed Josh’s torso back up using a solid thread. It was stronger than the kind that dissolved, but not as heavy-duty as the staples. He always hated using those. Tyler swabbed the area with disinfectant one more time before covering it with a waterproof bandage.

Tyler used the utmost care when he flipped Josh over. He was slippery and wet and his tissue was delicate. He might tear the fragile stitching in his organs if he was too rough.

Tyler slid his arms under Josh’s back, cringing at the cold ice as he slowly lifted him and rolled him over, catching his body before he could collapse face-first. He carefully brushed the ice cubes out of the way of his face so the hard pieces didn't bruise his eyeballs.

Now he was staring at Josh’s mutilated back. Exit wounds were always messier than the entrance, and Tyler could already see the starburst of raw flesh that would eventually become a scar. Tyler cleaned his back and picked the stray tissue away with his tweezers, depositing it in a metal pan.

He took up his scalpel and began to widen the hole the wound made, careful not to damage any more organs without the thick layer of abdominal muscle to protect them. His damaged kidney was right beneath his broken rib.

Tyler was at an impasse here. He didn’t want to remove the rib like some surgeons did when performing an open nephrectomy, but it would be difficult to take out the kidney otherwise. He studied the puzzle beneath him. Maybe he could just sever the tissue anchoring the kidney in place and pull it out by the ureter. Then he’d set the bone once it was out, stitch him up, and continue on to the next step.

Tyler wiped the blood, water, and fluid from his gloves with a rag and grabbed his smaller scalpel. He made several small incisions, severing the connective tissue, working around the broken rib and the torn kidney, feeling it give beneath the tiny, sharp blade. He cut the artery and vein last, making a mental note to sew it up once he sealed off the ureter.

Once he was done, Tyler located his ureter and tugged gently, watching the kidney slide out from under his last rib and out of his body cavity. Now Tyler could see how the bullet had ripped through it, nearly splitting it in half. He clutched the organ in his left hand and cut it from the ureter with his right. Tyler slowly lifted the organ from his body, feeling its soft give around his fingers. His breathing began to shake when he realized that was _Josh’s kidney_ , and he didn’t know if the way his vision blurred was because of the sleep deprivation or the caffeine or the stress or all three.

Tyler stopped himself before he could work himself into a full-blown panic attack _. Remember that you’re doing something good. He doesn’t need that kidney anymore._

Tyler deposited the destroyed kidney into the waste pan. He took out his needle and thread and sewed up the edge of the ureter before tucking it back into his body. His body would let it heal and would cause no harm later on. He reached under his broken rib and did the same to his artery and vein. He wished he had something more high-tech than his needle and thread. Cauterizing the cut would be nice.

Now he had to set his rib. Tyler hated setting bones, but the good thing about ribs was that they were encased in muscle, and they rarely get knocked out of alignment when broken. It wasn’t a clean break, given the nature of Josh’s injury, but there were no shards of bone and Tyler could set it with minimal effort. Healing was going to be difficult, since it was on his back and he had several other injuries on the other side of his body, so Tyler would have to keep him upright.

Tyler sewed up his back and placed a bandage over it. He was done, after nearly five hours of work, and he was sore and drooping with exhaustion. The effects of his energy drink had worn off long ago. He was about ready to collapse, but he had to keep working. He had to pump out his old blood and replace it with the new blood before he could even begin to think of restarting his heart. Josh would begin thawing during that time, and his cells would degrade beyond repair if he wasn’t fast enough. Tyler stared at Josh, laid face down in the ice, allowing a moment to himself before he continued his work.

 _You can do this_ , Tyler thought to himself. His thoughts accompanied the steady dripping of the melted water down the drain. _It’s going to work. I’m going to bring Josh back and we’re all going to be happy._

That was what he told himself every time. In truth, his reassurances did nothing since none of his previous trials had ever succeeded, but Tyler was still hopeful. Because no God would be so cruel as to keep something this important from him.

Tyler sighed and left the bathroom, going to his room to retrieve the chair he intended to use for Josh. It had armrests perfect for securing his arms and the back was high enough to restrain his neck to keep him from flopping around. Tyler didn’t want to admit it, but he had considered its potential to be used in a procedure like this before he bought it. He hadn't anticipated that its first user would be Josh, though.

The bathroom was too small to contain Tyler, Josh, and the chair all at once, so Tyler set the chair up in the hallway while he worked in the bathroom. He had a needle and a bit of piping to drain the blood, as well as a small pump he would attach to get rid of the old, clotted blood. He would have to let Josh’s body warm up somewhat before he could begin to massage the stiffness from his body so that his vessels would cooperate, and Tyler carefully lifted Josh from the tub and set him on top of the counter in the bathroom while he melted what remained of the ice with warm water from the shower and prepared the blood and the pump.

The bathroom was clean after about half an hour. The sun was gone and Tyler’s eyelids were beginning to stick together when he blinked. Josh had thawed out a little bit, but still looked very stiff. The thermometer Tyler had placed in his mouth indicated that his temperature had risen to sixty-three degrees Farenheit. He could start to work on his rigor mortis now.

Tyler stretched his fingers before he put his hands to Josh’s cool flesh. He would start with his arms and legs and work his way inwards.

Josh’s hand began to warm up under Tyler’s touch, and if Tyler closed his eyes and ignored the bloody smell, he could pretend that he was just idly playing with Josh’s hand. His fingers were soft and pliant and Tyler wanted to feel them curled tight around his again.

Tyler worked up his left arm, then his right, and then went up to his face to massage the stiffness from his cheeks. Tyler briefly reached inside his mouth to get at his tongue and the insides of his mouth and shuddered at the strange wet feeling of it. Somehow it was different from inspecting the insides of his body cavity.

He realized that he would have to take off his pants and in order to do everything right. He wouldn't be able to properly identify his muscles through the fabric and he wanted to be nothing less than perfectly precise so Josh wouldn't be injured when he woke up. Tyler shook his head as he cut open his jeans at the seam and peeled them off, tossing them behind his back onto the floor.

He kneaded Josh’s bare legs and worked upwards, feeling the stiffness leave his calves and thighs. The legs were much less complex than the arms or the head and Tyler made quick work of them.

Now for his torso. The wound on his right would complicate things. Tyler would just have to be very slow and careful. He ran a hand down the front of his stomach, pressing gently into his abdominal muscles with his fingertips, slowly working them until the tissue gave under his fingers. His hands were impossibly sore by now, but he couldn’t stop. Not now. He worked at his pectorals and his obliques. 

As painful and tedious the whole process was, it felt good to work on Josh. Tyler was able to forget his grief and pour his concentration on fixing him, and the fact that he was touching his corpse hurt a little less when he reminded himself that he wouldn’t be that way for much longer.

Josh was satisfactorily pliable after an hour. Tyler had to flip him again, and again he wished for a team to assist him. He rolled him over onto his stomach, tilting his head to the side so his nose wouldn’t break against the countertop. Tyler worked at his deltoids and dorsal muscles, digging his fingers into the small dimples above his glutes before moving down to work on them as well. He got the backs of his thighs again for good measure, and now Josh was done.

Tyler sat down on the toilet seat and wrung his hands, staring at the tile as he rested. His body was feeling the effects of all his work. He went to the medicine cabinet and swallowed two ibuprofen capsules.

He picked Josh up and set him in the chair. He had a few zipties to secure him, which didn’t make him feel very good about his bedside manner, but he had nothing else at his disposal and it's not like he ever took the Hippocratic oath in the first place.

Tyler had two needles to insert—one in the left arm and one in the right. The one on the left would receive the new blood while the second would spit out the old blood and send it down the drain. Josh had no pulse to help this process, so Tyler had to use a pump to assist it. Blood vessels constricted in the cold, so he would have to be careful to not use too much force lest he burst the smaller, delicate arteries. He could use no more than two pounds per square inch of force, a ridiculously small amount of pressure, but thankfully, his hands were so weak and tired it would be nearly impossible for him to create too much force.

Tyler inserted the first needle, sliding the tube under his skin. He was glad Josh’s skin was so pale—he could see every vein beneath his skin. He put in the second, and took the first bag of blood out and attached it to the left side with the pump.

It took a couple of squeezes before any blood began flowing through the tube on the right side, and Tyler watched as the clear tube became red and the sound of liquid rhythmically spurting from the end down the drain filled the bathroom. The bags were small and were exhausted quickly. Tyler haplessly tossed the bags aside as he replaced them, the pile slowly growing as he progressed.

The thick, blackish blood that was being pumped out of the right side was slowly being replaced by fresher red blood by the time Tyler was on the twelfth bag. The bad blood wasn’t all gone, Tyler knew, but Josh’s immune system would have to take care of that once he got it going again. He'd brew up some antibiotics to help him recover if he needed them.

Tyler cursed when he realized that he forgot to set up the electrical equipment beforehand. He abandoned his post on the toilet to find his materials.

His defibrillator was in his closet, his oxygen tank full and waiting under his bed, and the power box was conveniently placed in the hallway, just a few feet away from the chair. Electric engineering was never Tyler’s strong suit; he was a biologist after all, but he knew enough to know how to hook up an adapter to the power source to keep any unexpected surges from accidentally frying his brain.

Tyler pulled the tubes from Josh’s arms and sealed them shut to keep the blood from dribbling out. He had given him about seven pints of blood so far, which Josh could get by on. He could add more blood if he needed to.

Tyler readjusted Josh, making sure he was in a better position before fetching the lung support and gel-patch defibrillator. He had no equipment with which to measure his heart rate other than his stethoscope, but Tyler knew the speed of Josh’s heartbeat after so much time hearing it thump as he laid against his chest. This was a matter of soul just as much as it was of science.

Defibrillation is not recommended or required for patients whose hearts have stopped entirely, but Tyler was the first of his kind and had yet to discover any other method. He used the same treatment for those with ventricular tachycardia, using a charge of three hundred and sixty joules. He’d have to use a lot more power than he would for a pigeon, and he might take out the power in the whole building. Oh well. The apartment was used to constant blackouts from fried wires or shoddy generators.

Tyler inserted the oxygen tube up his nose and into his lungs. The piping went into a small tank of pure oxygen, slowly filling his lungs with the a higher concentration than regular air in anticipation of reduced lung function on resuscitation. He peeled the gel adhesives from their backing and placed them carefully on Josh’s bare chest, one above his heart and one below. Josh had little body hair to speak of and Tyler was grateful that he didn’t have to shave him to ensure a more secure current. He attached the wire to the gel and checked the lines to make sure everything was secure. He had once electrocuted himself while trying to resurrect a squirrel and it was a mistake he didn’t want to repeat when working with such large amounts of electricity.

Everything was ready. Tyler rubbed his eyes and studied Josh, limp and cold and went and stitched all over. This was the moment of truth. Doubt suddenly sparked up, but he quelled it. He couldn’t afford to think like that right now. He had poured so much of his life into the development of this procedure and Josh was the culmination of his efforts.

His hands were sweating beneath his gloves. He approached the defibrillator. He’d administer ten shocks, fifteen if it didn’t work.

He pressed the button.

One. Josh’s muscles tensed, then went slack.

Two. Three. Four. Five. Tyler held his stethoscope up to Josh’s chest. All he could hear was the soft hiss of the tube administering oxygen into his lungs. He reached for the defibrillator and tried again.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Still nothing. The scent of ozone filled the air.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Josh’s heart gave one weak flutter, then stopped. Tyler knew that was just a twitch from the charge.

Tyler sat back, hot frustration building up behind his eyes. It wasn’t fair. Josh had died too young. Josh was supposed to die with him. He was supposed to be his friend.

Tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his cheeks before he could stop himself from crying. All the grief that his shock and his work had managed to push away finally spilled over and overwhelmed him, and tears ran from his eyes like juice from a pulpy fruit. Several tears slid into his mouth and the taste of salt spread over his tongue, mixing with the faint taste of ozone in the air.

Salt. Salt water. Ozone. Electricity.

Wait.

Maybe he could—

Tyler leapt upright, darting for the kitchen. There was no guarantee that this would work. Maybe he’d just end up frying Josh and knocking out the power grid. But Tyler let his instincts guide him. This was a matter of the soul.

Normal saline had a concentration of 0.9%. But he needed this to conduct electricity. He could double the amount. He didn’t have time to heat up a pint over the stove, so he improvised and sterilized one of his beakers and microwaved a pint of purified water for one minute, calculating the amount of salt he’d need to create the mixture.

Tyler pulled the beaker from the microwave and stirred in the salt, reaching for the IV bags he kept in one of his drawers. He poured the mixture in and sealed the bag, racing back to the hallway to get the tube and needle, quickly attaching it and piercing Josh’s left arm again, gently squeezing the pump to get it flowing and mix with his blood.

The bag emptied quickly, his body easily accepting the extra pint. Tyler detached the bag and set it aside, returning to the defibrillator. He administered three shocks, holding his breath in anticipation.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.

Tyler put the stethoscope up to Josh’s chest.

_Thump. Thumpthump. Thump._

The beat was fluttering and irregular, but present. Tyler grinned, near-hysterical with excitement as he listened to it stutter. Josh was now showing ventricular fibrillation. This was progress. The saline infusion was working. He stepped back and decided to give him three more shocks.

Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.

_Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

_Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

_Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

Josh’s chest twitched, and twitched, and then heaved as Josh began breathing. _It's alive!_


	2. Contre l'homme

“Josh? Josh, can you hear me?”

Josh didn’t respond. That was expected. His eyelids fluttered, half-open, and Tyler could hear his breath whistling through his nose, see his chest rising and falling. His fingers were twitching, but Tyler knew not to get his hopes up; his muscles were reacting to the salt and electricity. Tyler peeled off the defibrillator pads and cut the zip ties, and Josh slumped a little in his seat.

Josh was breathing, his heart was beating, and Tyler had no idea what to do. His previous experiments had all ended with him giving up and burying the remains. 

Tyler waved his finger in front of Josh’s eyes, hoping he would get some sort of response. Josh’s eyes flickered, but didn’t follow him. They kept staring blankly, and Tyler reached out and closed his eyelids before his eyes could dry out too much. He realized that his body was still too cold. Tyler retrieved a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around his shoulders. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

Tyler pushed the chair down the hall, not wanting to disturb Josh by picking him up. He dragged the oxygen tank behind him. He would probably need some time for his body to start warming up, but the heater was in the living room. Tyler winced as he saw the scratches in the wood as he pushed the chair, but that wasn’t important. He had just defied the laws of both God and science and the condition of his floors paled in that light.

Tyler carefully lifted Josh and laid him down on his threadbare sofa. Josh’s muscles tensed as he picked him up, and some air hissed out of his lungs as he picked him up. Tyler quickly put him down and replaced the towel with the blanket he kept on the couch, practically swaddling Josh. He was still a little damp from the ice, and Tyler dabbed a towel over the wet patches to help him warm up faster.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Josh. He knew he needed to go back to the hallway and clean everything up, but he could see Josh’s eyes twitching beneath the lids, hear him breathe, and when he touched his skin, feel the slight warmth that was now starting to radiate from his skin. He was _alive_.

He reached out and took Josh’s hand, pressing his lips to his waxy skin. The twitching had largely subsided, and maybe Tyler was just imagining it, but perhaps the occasional flutter of muscle was deliberate. Maybe Josh was waking up.

That came with its own set of problems.

For the first time in all his years of experimentation, Tyler felt a little uneasy at his success. He didn’t know how functional Josh would be. He had been dead for some time, and Tyler had administered an alarming number of shocks before he came back to life, and his brain might not be the same.

He was always aware of the consequences before, but only now did they hold any weight in Tyler’s mind.

Well, it was too late to take it back now.

“Hey, Josh,” Tyler said. “Can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can.”

Josh’s eyelids twitched, and Tyler’s heart jumped. Maybe he _was_ conscious and just wasn’t able to properly respond.

“Can you hear me?” he asked again. Josh might not be able to react, but Tyler reasoned that a familiar voice might be a bit comforting as he woke up. He kept talking.

“It’s me, Josh. Are you in any pain? I can get you painkillers if you need any. Uh, I had to take out one of your kidneys. Sorry about that, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t save it. You can look at it if you want to since I didn’t throw it out yet.”

Josh’s breathing became deeper, and his chest rose and sank more fully. His lips parted, and Tyler leaned forward in anticipation.

Josh exhaled and a sound like a dying animal came out. Tyler could see his jaw tightening, and _oh, it worked, Josh really was conscious._

“ _Tyler_ ,” he slurred. “Tyler.”

Josh was responsive. He was alive.

Josh slowly opened his eyes, going a bit cross-eyed when he tried to focus on Tyler.

“Josh?” Tyler said. “It’s me.”

“I… know,” Josh said, tongue thick around the words. “Wha’ happened?”

His hand was coming up to clutch at the seam in his right side. He was probably in a lot of pain right now, but his face didn’t show it beyond the slight tension between his brows and in his jaw.

“You got shot,” Tyler said. “Do you remember that?”

Josh nodded, muscles stiff and slow. “You—held me.”

“I did. And I took you home and fixed you up. That’s why your side is sore.”

Josh patted the spot and winced, a small, pained sound escaping his lips.

“I can get some painkillers if you need them,” Tyler said. “I don’t have any on me right now, though. Will you be okay?”

“Yes. I. Lay down.”

Josh was starting to shiver now, which was a good sign. His body wanted to warm up. Josh moved stiffly as he attempted to turn sideways onto the length of the couch. Tyler reached out and helped him down, making sure he didn’t jostle his injured side.

“Stay here,” Tyler said, as if Josh was capable of escaping. “I’m just gonna get you some more blankets.”

Tyler turned to the metal radiator set in the wall and set it to eighty-five degrees as he left for his bedroom. It was going to be hot, but Josh needed to warm up before too many of his cells died and his tissue became necrotic. He’d probably need extra support for his immune system as well. Tyler wasn't a great chemist, but he'd be able to figure out a proper dose. He might need a PICC line while his stomach recovered, too.

Tyler came back with several blankets, covering Josh and making sure they weren’t so heavy that they’d restrict his breathing. He didn’t want to take any chances now.

“Tyler?” Josh asked, eyes flickering up to look at him. “Why am I. Why am I not in a. Hospital.”

Ah. There was the question Tyler had been waiting for him to ask.

“Uh.”

How was Tyler supposed to say this? Josh didn’t seem to be aware of the fact that he had been dead.

“You—you were…”

Josh blinked at him, expectant.

“You were dead,” Tyler finally said. “You bled out in the alley and I took you home.”

“Your ex—ezper'mens,” Josh's tongue fumbled around the word. “That was how?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “This is the first time it’s worked.”

Josh’s eyes went unfocused as he made the effort of bringing his hands up to his face. He looked at them, curling and opening his fingers, considering himself, confusion and wonder on his lovely face.

“I was. Dead,” he said, horror tinging his flat voice.

"Yes, Josh, you were. But I brought you back."

“Why?” Josh asked, and his eyes darted back and forth, glimmering. His breathing had picked up. Shit, he was starting to panic. Tyler hadn't expected him to get upset.

"I know I did it without asking you," Tyler boldly began, "but I couldn’t just let you die. Not when I was able to do something about it. Your life was just beginning.”

“How long was I dead.”

Tyler counted the hours in his head. “About twenty four hours. That’s it. No one knows about this except for us and Mark."

“Am I going. To be okay? I want to-- to see my mother.”

“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “I’ve never made it this far. And you’ll have to wait, I’m sorry. How are we gonna explain this to her?”

“Mm.”

Josh still gave no indication that he would rather be dead. Tyler was grateful. He didn’t know if he loved Josh enough to let him die if he demanded it. He realized that he should ask because it didn’t look like Josh was going to tell him anything otherwise.

Maybe it was best if it stayed that way for now.

“I saw—saw nothing,” Josh blurted. “When I—when I.”

He didn’t finish his sentence. Tyler knew what he meant.

“No afterlife?” he asked.

Josh shook his head. “Just. Qu—quietness.”

Josh’s testimony came as a relief to Tyler. There was no Heaven he had inadvertently torn Josh from, nor any Hell Tyler would inevitably be damned to when he died. _Just quietness._

“You need water,” Tyler said. “I had to inject you with saline to get this to work and you’ll need to flush it out.”

"Okay."

Josh had a hard time swallowing. Tyler gave him his water with a teaspoon and wondered if he'd ever be able to drink on his own.

Tyler messaged Mark. He had risked his job for Tyler and he deserved to know what had happened.

 

_Mark. It worked._

Sent by Tyler at 10:48 PM

 

_Holy shit, it did?_

_Is he alright? Can I come over and talk to him?_

Sent by Mark at 10:49 PM

 

_He's still weak. I'll see if he wants to talk to you._

Sent by Tyler at 10:50 PM

 

_Sure. I still can't believe you actually did it.  
_

Sent by Mark at 10:53 PM

 

Finally Tyler noticed how late it was. He had work tomorrow and he needed a full eight hours of sleep if he wanted to be vaguely functional the next morning, but he knew that was going to be impossible. Josh might have some unexpected complications overnight and it was possible that he might not wake up.

Tyler set an alarm on his phone to go off every hour. He’d have to risk overdosing on caffeine to get through work, but he had to do what he had to do.

Hour one. Tyler had given Josh some of his clothes to cover himself. Neither of them could sleep. Josh peeled off the bandage wrapped around his wounds and kept running his fingers up and down the raw stitches. Tyler watched him from his place where he was sleeping on the floor, wondering just what the hell he had done.

Hour two. Josh eventually succumbed to his exhaustion, his soft breathing filling the living room, shallow and faint but steady and slowly deepening. Tyler had set up his pillow on the floor and slept without a blanket or a shirt. The heater was still on and Josh was still warming up.

Hour three. Josh’s heart rate was steady and his breathing was normal. He slept deeply enough for Tyler to put the cold stethoscope against his chest without rousing him.

Hour four. Josh needed to use the restroom but refused the indignity of a bedpan. Tyler helped him to the bathroom at the risk of ripping open one of his stitches. It had come close when Josh stumbled and Tyler almost didn't catch him.

Hour five. Josh’s temperature had finally risen to 98.9 and they could turn off the heater. Tyler insisted that Josh keep the blankets in case his body gave out on him. It seemed unlikely, but Josh only carried a tiny bit of fat around his waist and thighs and he had always run cold.

Hour six. Tyler replaced the bandages on Josh’s torso and Josh shivered when Tyler’s cold fingers touched his skin. That was a good response. His heart rate was strong and his lungs were free of fluid.

Hour seven. Birds were beginning to chirp, though the sun hadn’t yet risen. Josh drank more water. He managed to get through half the glass before coughing. That was an improvement.

Hour eight. Tyler made himself some coffee. Josh seemed interested in the smell, but Tyler wasn't going to be an idiot and give some to him. His systems were just finding their equilibrium and caffeine would throw it all off. He heated up some low-sodium broth for him instead.

"I have to go to work," Tyler said. "Will you be okay? I can turn on the TV if you want."

"Just radio. Please."

"Okay. You didn't answer my last question, though."

"Oh. I'll live."

Tyler had used up all his previous vacation days for time with Josh, and he regretted taking those days off now that he _actually_ needed to be with him. He'd have to leave some food with him. He warmed up some more broth and poured it into a thermos, setting it down on the coffee table in front of Josh.

"Do you have your phone? Please tell me if something happens. So just don't die, okay?"

Josh tilted his head to the side and his mouth made a shape that looked like a smile.

"No promises."

* * *

Work had never felt so tedious. He had long grown used to cleaning up blood and gore, but today's particularly messy suicide combined with his exhaustion and the knowledge that Josh was left in his home unmonitored made him feel trapped. He was sweating beneath his plastic biohazard suit, and his fingers trembled as he scrubbed the blood from the bathroom tile. His back ached every time he had to work on a particularly stubborn patch in the white grout.

"You alright?" someone behind him said.

Tyler startled. He hadn't heard them approach. He turned away from the bathtub to see Jenna, his coworker of two and a half years.

"Yeah," he said. "Just really tired."

She didn't know about Josh. She didn't know what he had done. Talking to her felt jarring.

"More of your projects?" she asked.

He told everyone he was a musician. It explained the constant exhaustion and the fear of death that constantly consumed him he knew they interpreted as pretentiousness.

"Yeah," he said. "It's worth it, though."

"You have to show me sometime."

"Maybe."

Tyler went back to pouring bleach over dried blood stains, hoping to God Josh hadn't slipped away from him yet again.

* * *

Josh was still in his place on the sofa when Tyler returned eight hours later. The thermos was empty and the radio was off.

"Are you okay?" Tyler asked before anything else.

"I feel. Faint."

Tyler's heart stopped dead.

"Wait-- what?" he asked. Faintness could mean a multitude of things, but extreme circumstances meant extreme problems. He could be bleeding internally. He might be necrotic. He might be anything, at this point, and Tyler wasn't sure if he'd be able to figure out what it was.

"Can you describe your symptoms?" he asked.

Josh swallowed, and Tyler could see the sluggishness with which he moved and the great effort it took for his body to keep breathing. He never should have left. He should have taken leave to take care of him. He was a terrible friend. 

"I..."

Josh's diction had improved over the hours, but he still paused at odd moments. Tyler suspected that wasn't going to change. He sat on the coffee table, looking as patient as he could despite his worry so that Josh wouldn't feel rushed.

"I feel dizzy and. Tired. Always thirsty. I drank and went to. The restroom but. Still." 

There was an inkling of an idea. Tyler leaned forward to study Josh's unfocused eyes.

"Josh," Tyler began. "Is your vision blurring?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel nauseated?"

"Yes." 

Tyler immediately got up and ducked into his closet to find his sphygmomanometer to check Josh's blood pressure.

"What is it," Josh asked as Tyler returned and strapped the cuff around Josh's arm and pumped until his circulation was cut off, reading the result. Eighty over fifty. Far too low.

"You need blood. Your blood pressure was fine before. Shit."

Tyler raced off to the refrigerator to retrieve some blood, holding the two packs between his hands to warm them up. This wasn't scientific at all but it was the only thing Tyler could think of that might help. Josh's clotting capabilities would be reduced after receiving so much new blood that even a small cut might spell the end for him, and there would be no hope if his insides started bleeding. He prayed that this would stop being a problem-- he could only bribe Mark for so long.

Tyler swallowed, thinking of what to say. He looked down at Josh, who had shifted so that he was lying down. His eyes were closed, so maybe he wasn't expecting a response.

He grabbed a pushpin from the cork board in the hallway and pierced it in the drywall above the sofa and hung the bag of blood on it, attaching a line and needle to the bottom. He went back to his room to find gloves and alcohol wipes, snapping the latex over his hands and tearing open the packet as he say back down on the coffee table.

"Are you ready?" he asked, holding up the needle. Josh opened his eyes and looked at it.

"Do I have to? Is it. Safe."

"I just want to be sure."

Josh closed his eyes, accepting. Or resigning. It was hard to tell.

"Could you give me your arm?" Tyler asked. Josh closed his eyes and held out the arm closest to the wall. Tyler shifted a few inches back to accommodate.

"This won't hurt too much," Tyler said, swabbing down the inner crook of Josh's arm. "I've done this a lot of times. I might have dropped out of medical school but that wasn't because I was bad at giving injections."

"I know," Josh said. "Just be careful."

"I will," Tyler said, piercing Josh's skin.

Josh shuddered a bit, but didn't move after that. Tyler was able to set his arm down and patted it, telling him not to move.

He watched as the blood began to run through the line and into Josh's arm, 

"Tyler," Josh said. "Can you stay. I'm scared."

"Of course," Tyler said. "Why are you scared?"

Tyler watched Josh's throat worked as he swallowed. "I," he began. "I was dead. I think I can. Feel scared."

"That's true," Tyler said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He took hold of Josh's free hand and held it, and now he could feel Josh's hand weakly squeeze his for the briefest moment. It was cold, so he took his other hand and enveloped it between his palms and fingers, rubbing to try and warm it. He glanced at the bag. The blood had drained a tiny bit.

"I didn't ask," Josh said. "For this. I hope you know."

What on earth was he referring to?

"Is it okay?" Tyler asked.

"I don't know. I feel strange."

"In what way?"

"Just. Strange. Wrong."

"Let me check you for internal bleeding," Tyler said. Josh was in no condition to have an existential crisis.

"I feel. Okay."

"That's because the blood is on the inside. People don't notice unless they know what they're looking for."

Tyler gingerly lifted Josh's shirt to see if there was any hemorrhaging. The skin on his stomach was as pale as marble, save for the pink line in his stomach. There was no purple mottling of the skin around it. Tyler's handiwork had held up.

"Does your wound hurt when you move?"

"Yes."

Tyler gently pressed the wound with the tips of his fingers and Josh's face crumpled in pain as he cried out and tried to twist away from his touch. Tyler jerked his hand away, terrified.

"I'm so sorry Josh-- I didn't think it would hurt that much. Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Josh said, still breathing hard. "Please don't. Touch me there."

"You need painkillers."

"It is. Better than yester-- yesterday."

"I can get you morphine while you heal. I don't want you to be in pain, Josh."

"Thanks, Tyler."

* * *

Tyler stood in front of unit 243 a day later, waiting for the man who lived inside to open the door. He never learned his name and never needed to. They seldom talked.

"Hey," the man said, leaning on the doorway. His eyes reminded Tyler of Josh's, always distant and unfocused and a little bloodshot.

"Hi. I need morphine."

The man glanced left and right. "Alright, come in."

The drug dealer's house looked a little like Tyler's-- full of illicit equipment and chemicals.

"I've got opioids, I've got weed, I've got just about anything," he said, opening a hollowed-out book he kept in his bookcase.

"I just need morphine," Tyler said. "Everything you have."

The dealer raised his eyebrows. "What the hell are you gonna do with it? That's a couple grand worth of drugs right there."

"I'm paying you," Tyler said. "You don't need to ask questions."

The man shrugged and handed him the entire book. "This is about half a pound of it, powdered," he said. "Now, I don't know what you need half a pound of morphine for but you're right, it's none of my business. I need two thousand. And I'd prefer cash."

Tyler unzipped his backpack. He didn't trust banks and instead hoarded his cash in his home. Two thousand dollars was but a fraction of his savings.

"Woah," he said. "I didn't expect you'd actually be carrying it right now."

"I know what I'm doing," Tyler said, handing him the bundle. He exchanged it for the plastic-wrapped package of morphine in his bag and zipped it, shouldering it and getting up. "Thank you."

"No problem."

* * *

Josh moved much better with the painkillers. He had never mentioned any pain, but Tyler was certain that he was hurting, if the constant wrinkle between his brows said anything. He was worried about accidentally getting him addicted to the morphine, but just a few days on it shouldn’t hurt.

“Tyler?” Josh asked. They were both at the dinner table, Josh sitting cross-legged in his seat. He wasn't eating. He only had a glass of lukewarm water mixed with a little sugar. Tyler was concerned about his lack of appetite but he couldn't force him to eat. Josh's blood pressure was still low, and once a week he asked for a transfusion. Tyler was quickly running out of blood.

“Yeah?” Tyler asked, shaking these worries from his mind as he ate his dinner.

“When will I. Be able to go home?”

Oh. That.

No one knew Josh was dead. Josh didn’t have a steady job that would miss him, and he lived nowhere near his family.

“Whenever you want,” Tyler said, even though he didn’t want to admit it. “I mean, it’s not like I’m imprisoning you here. I just—you need more time. You’re still wounded. You’re stable for now but if something could happen when I’m not nearby.”

Josh blinked, frowning as he thought.

“I just. Want…”

He closed his eyes and loosened his hand from his glass. Tyler’s eyes caught on the little red dot where he injected the morphine that morning.

“What do you want?” Tyler asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I can take the day off today, if you want,” Tyler said. “We can spend some time together. I know you’re bored.”

“It’s okay,” Josh said. “I’m fine. Just...”

He shrugged, one shoulder twitching.

"Do you need any morphine?" Tyler asked. "You didn't have any today."

"I can do it. Myself."

"You know how?'

"Watched you."

Tyler was never sure how astute Josh really was.

"Okay," Tyler said, letting this go as well. "I'll get the needle. You have to let me observe, though."

Tyler fetched the IV and the diluted morphine solution. He set it down on the kitchen table and Josh shuffled over, sitting down in the chair with a slight wince and taking the pointed needle. He turned his wrist up to the ceiling, exposing the pale skin there that Tyler had pierced so many times. Josh found one of his pale green veins, not wincing when he pushed the small needle in, watching as the clear fluid from the bag slowly dripped into his bloodstream.

"You're a natural," Tyler said.

"How long. Will I need it?"

"As long as you're hurting. How's your wound? Can you show me?"

Josh lifted up his shirt with his free arm, and Tyler got out of his chair to kneel at Josh's feet, observing how the wound was healing. It was progressing much more slowly than he liked, but he wasn't surprised that it was healing so slowly; coming back from the dead certainly would do a number on one's immune system.

"Is it okay?"

"You'll be able to take the stitches out in a couple of weeks," Tyler said. "Maybe a few more days after that, I don't know. You heal slow."

Josh's hand came down to touch his wound, and Tyler observed the unusual grace of his fingers, slow and stiff and delicate in a way he'd never seen his hands behave before he died. Tyler couldn't stop himself from reaching out and touching Josh's hand with his own, and Josh shivered. Maybe it was the morphine, or maybe it was Tyler's warmth.

"Are you cold?" Tyler asked, running his fingers over the rest of his flat stomach.

"Yes. Always. Tyler..."

"Yes?"

"I'm. A monster."

The words wounded Tyler. They really did.

"I don't care what you think," Tyler responded, looking up at him with reverence. "you're a miracle of science. And I love you, no matter what you do. You're only a monster if you do terrible things."

Josh didn't say anything and Tyler wasn't sure if he had understood what Tyler said. But that was fine-- Josh would eventually realize he had no reason to hate himself. He hadn't liked himself before he died, either. Tyler just had to make him see.

"Do you need to eat?" Tyler asked, realizing that Josh hadn't had a meal since this morning.

"I'm not. Hungry," he said, and from this distance, Tyler realized that Josh's breath smelled a little metallic. Odd. He'd have to check that out.

"Is your stomach hurting?" Tyler asked, still close to his face. Josh's eyes fluttered.

"No. Why?"

"You've got a funny smell. Like something's rotting."

"Nothing hurts."

Tyler didn't know what to do between the feeding and the morphine and the regular attention to his stitches. Maybe he needed new blood. He took Josh's wrist and pressed his thumb over one of his veins, feeling the soft pulse beneath his skin. He peeled down Josh's lower lid and his inner lip, and the soft tissue was all a healthy pink. His nails weren't blue.

Josh wiggled out of Tyler's grip. Tyler looked at him, confused, but he offered no explanation.

* * *

Mark was not impressed when he came over several days later.

"Hey, Josh," Mark said, hesitant as he stood in the living room, looking down at Josh. Tyler stood next to him, watching Marl's face. Mark hadn't seen Josh die or viewed his body, and Tyler wondered if he noticed anything different about him that Tyler did not.

"Hello. Mark," Josh said, and Tyler realized how quiet and low his voice was compared to Mark's when they used to be the same.

"How are you feeling?" Mark asked, taking a seat on the sofa where Josh had taken up residence. Tyler offered him his bed earlier, but Josh refused.

"I'm. Good. You don't. Need to worry. Tyler asks me-- asks this all the. Time."

Tyler caught Mark's frown at the way Josh's words stopped and started erratically. Tyler knew there was probably something wrong with his frontal lobe. That part of the brain is always particularly delicate. But Josh didn't seem violent or depressed. He liked the same things and was just... quieter.

Mark grabbed a chair from the dining room and set it in front of the sofa, shoving the coffee table aside. Normally Mark would give him a hug, but his knowledge of Josh's state made him hesitant. Tyler couldn't help but feel offended that he was so afraid of Josh.

"He's not gonna bite, you know," Tyler said, and Mark nodded.

"I know," Mark said. "It's just-- I'm not sure what to do 'cause Josh was-- he was--"

"Dead," Josh interjected. "I know."

"Yeah, that," Mark said, facing Josh again. "So what's it like now? I stole that blood for you, you know."

"Fine. I want to. Go outside."

Both Josh and Mark turned to face him.

"What?" Tyler asked.

"He hasn't left your house?" Mark asked. "Dude, he can't stay in here forever."

"I never said he couldn't leave," Tyler said, defensive. "But he's still healing. It's going pretty slowly, you know."

Mark looked at Josh.

"I haven't. Asked," Josh said, and Tyler was glad he was coming to his defense.

Mark nodded, and they all sat silently for a few minutes. Suddenly, Mark got up and sat in the couch next to Josh.

"You're cold," Mark said, feeling his arm.

"I. Didn't notice."

"He runs lower now," Tyler said. "I'm not sure why. It might be decreased blood pressure."

"It's not a. Problem."

"If you say so," Mark said, hesitant.

Mark didn't stay for long. Tyler could tell that he was uncomfortable. He wasn't sure if Josh noticed, but he gave no indication that he did. Mark made a lame excuse, said his goodbyes to Josh, and got up to leave, Tyler going to open the door for him.

Tyler held the door as Mark slipped on his shoes and prepared to exit. Mark suddenly grabbed his hand as he left and pulled Tyler out into the hall with him, the door swinging shut behind them.

"Mark? Is something wrong?" Tyler asked, concerned.

"Tyler..." Mark began, and he finally let the distaste show in his face. "I don't know how to say this but-- this was a terrible idea."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"You know what I'm referring to," Mark said, gesturing at the closed door. "This isn't right."  
  
"Why do you get to decide what's right and wrong?" Tyler defended. "I reversed death--"  
  
"Well maybe it isn't supposed to be reversed, Tyler, haven't you ever considered that? He's alive, yeah, but is it a life worth living now that he's... whatever he is? He's not himself."  
  
"Of course it is," Tyler said.  
  
"Why do you get to decide that?" Mark countered.  
  
"So what are you going to do about it? I mean, it's not like I can just _murder_ him to end it."  
  
Mark sighed and put his head in his hands. "I know. I guess if he gets sick you just have to let it-- let it take its course."  
  
"That's sadistic."  
  
"So is bringing him back to life just so he could inevitably die again. Seriously, I don't know what you expected to gain from this."

Tyler squinted. " _My closest friend_ , Mark. You were the one who gave me the blood in the first place. You put your job on the line for me. Why would you do that if you'd be mad at me if I succeeded?"  
  
"Because I didn't expect you to, okay? I was hoping you'd realize that this whole resurrection thing is really screwed up and stop before you went too far. You have issues, man."  
  
"I know I do. But I really think I could use those _issues_ for good."  
  
Mark gripped his shoulders with his hands. "This. Isn't. Good."  
  
"You," Tyler said, pointing a finger as he shoved him away with the other hand, "Don't get to decide that, remember?"  
  
"Well, neither do you!"  
  
Tyler spluttered angrily as Mark pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Okay, okay," Mark said. "Look. No one's gonna win this argument because you're too damn stubborn."  
  
"Thanks," Tyler snorted.  
  
Mark raised a brow before continuing, "So I'm gonna walk away now and just... go. I like you, Tyler, I really do, and I like Josh and that's why I'm not calling the cops on your ass."  
  
"So you're abandoning me."  
  
" _No,_ " Mark said, "I'm distancing myself from you because you have a fucking zombie in your house and I don't have the stomach or the sanity for any of this."  
  
"Josh is not--"  
  
"No! Don't!" Mark snapped, raising a hand to silence him. "This is the part where you listen to me, Tyler. You're gonna regret this later, you really will."  
  
"Is that a threat?"  
  
"No, it's just a warning. Bye, Tyler."  
  
Mark turned on his heels and left Tyler standing in front of his apartment. He stood there until he heard the elevator open down the hall. Sighing, he went back inside.

"What happened?" Josh asked.

"Mark's just-- Mark's just being a jerk," Tyler said. "He doesn't really get it. Why I did all this."

Josh didn't respond.

"You know why I did it, right?"

"Yes. You were. Stubborn and couldn't let. Me go."

 _Not you too,_ Tyler thought, but he didn't say it, to spare Josh's feelings.

* * *

Josh's stitches were finally able to be removed after another week. He was stretched out on Tyler's bed, shirt off, arms spread-eagled as he laid on his back. Armed with a bright light and sterilized pairs of scissors and tweezers, Tyler got to work on the first of the multitude of stitches climbing Josh's side.

The wound had scarred over nicely in the starburst pattern he had predicted, the white line of Tyler's incision cutting through it like a lightning bolt through a cloud. Josh laid still and silent as Tyler lifted the end of each tiny knot and severed it with the fine-nosed scissors. His chest rose and fell serenely. Tyler admired the green veins he could see lurking beneath his thin skin, peppered with freckles.

"You're really beautiful, you know that?" Tyler asked. Of course he had to know. Did Josh think of himself as a monster? Was that why he didn't want to be near Tyler?

"Thank you."

Eventually all fifteen stitches were cut. Now came the work of tugging the ends out. Tyler set up his waste pan in the crook of Josh's armpit as he plucked out the black thread, watching his skin pull as the stitches reluctantly left their burrows like parasites in his skin.

Josh was left with tiny red holes in his stomach. Tyler ran a gloved finger over them, pressing lightly to see if anything would happen. Nothing did.

"Turn over," Tyler said. He had to get the back now. Josh obeyed and quickly turned himself onto his stomach, revealing the second, longer set of stitches that bisected his exit wound.

This one took longer and Tyler's eyes began to cross after some time. He kept at it, fingers aching as stitch after stitch was ripped from Josh's tissue. Josh let out a tiny huff as the last one was removed.

"Are you in any pain?" he asked.

"No. Just. Happy that they're gone."

Josh sat up now, slumping on the edge of the bed, staring off at something on the ground. Tyler, kneeling, rested his head on his lap. Josh shifted away uncomfortably.

"Thank you Tyler."

"You're welcome."

Tyler didn't touch him. Josh left and retreated into the bathroom.

He spent a few minutes cleaning up his bed and looking through his phone. No new messages from Mark. Emails about work and bills and the news. Nothing particularly important or interesting. Tyler didn't understand how people could live like this every day, with just a job and just a few friends and some news and the occasional paycheck. How could they feel satisfied with so little? Did they not feel the tug towards the unknown, towards the boundaries of what was and wasn't possible? Didn't they want to tear them down and expand them in the name of bettering humanity? And if they did, why did they do nothing about that beautiful, noble urge?

Tyler sighed and laid down on his bed, in the exact same position Josh had been. He imagined the same stitches in his side, muscles aching with recent resurrection, the foggy brain and the cottony mouth. He imagined having the knowledge that he was the first person to ever, truly come back from the dead through technology. It must be so wonderful. Tyler was almost bitter that he was only the person who had made it possible.

* * *

He had to clean up a murder today. Those were rarer than suicides and brought him more interest. Tyler thought everyone had the freedom to end their own lives-- but to take someone else's, against their will, was a great breach of their autonomy. He studied the bodies as carefully as the forensics team, though they are usually long gone by the time Tyler and his crew come to clean up the scenes. Objects and furniture might be moved by then, but the body is always left where it is for them to pick up. There's a few seconds before the remains are taken away in a body bag where Tyler can study them.

This body was unique-- most murders were shootings or stabbings, and most of those were done in a fit of passion. This one was clearly executed thoughtfully, if the severed hands and slit throat said anything. The victim-- who had apparently been sitting at their piano when the murderer struck, was an older woman in her fifties, hair greying at the roots. Going by the murmurings of the police, it was her own son, her own creation who had killed her, apprehended just a few blocks away from her home, smeared with blood and dragging an axe, still lost in his fury. He had applied so much force when chopping her throat that she was nearly decapitated. But her cervical vertebrae were still intact, and Tyler imagined carefully stitching her tendons and muscles back together and reconnecting the arteries, repairing her esophagus and pumping her full of blood and saline. If he had been there when this woman died, he might have been able to save her, the way he had saved Josh.

"Tyler? Tyler, you in there?"

Tyler realized that he had gotten lost in thought, standing over the body blankly while Jenna and the rest of the team were already hard at work carrying the body away.

"Sorry," Tyler said, and stooped down to pick up her hands. The wedding ring on her finger was still there, even though Tyler had only seen one pair of shoes out when he entered. A dead spouse. Maybe she was with them now in Heaven. Maybe she was happier in death.

They carefully loaded the woman in the bag. Tyler watched as they zipped the bag over her face, concealed. He helped them carry her out of her house and into the coroner's van.

"So," Jenna began as someone else handed them buckets. "Are you free Saturday?"

"Uh, why?"

"I've invited a few friends over for a dinner party. Nothing fancy. We've been working together for, like, what, three years now?"

"Yeah, it has."

Tyler... really didn't want to go. Not that he disliked Jenna. He just wasn't in the mood. Even before all this, he always kept to himself (and Josh).

"So what do you think?" Jenna asked.

"Um, alright," Tyler said. "What time?"

He really didn't want to go, but he didn't want to make people unhappy. Especially not Jenna. Surely Josh would understand. And, if he was feeling well enough by then, he might even come with him and make this whole ordeal a little more tolerable. Josh was always better in situations like this than he.

"Six," Jenna said. "I think you know my address."

"Yeah, I do."

She smiled, and Tyler added it to his mental collection of the times he managed to make other people happy. It was what he lived for.

* * *

Saturday morning came, and with it, a request from Josh.

"Tyler," Josh said to him as Josh carefully stretched his body. "I want. To go outside."

"Really?" Tyler asked, loading the dishwasher. "Where?"

"I. Don't know. The park."

"Oh, okay," Tyler said. "Give me, like, five minutes to finish this up."

Josh shook his head. "No. I want to. Go alone."

Tyler paused. "What?"

"I want to. Go alone," Josh repeated.

Oh no. Not this.

"Josh," Tyler began. "You can't go out alone. What if something happens to you along the way? The park is, like, two miles off. You're still weak."

"I feel. Good."

"That's because of the morphine. We can go out together, or not at all."

Josh didn't look convinced.

"I'm not doing this to be an asshole, Josh," Tyler reasoned. "Seriously, I don't want you collapsing on the sidewalk and getting taken away by the hospital. Imagine what they'd say about you-- I mean, no one's ever done what I've done."

"No. I need. Time alone."

"I get it, Josh," Tyler said. "I know you don't want to be in here all day-- I get it, I promise you'll be able to go out soon. But I have to worry about your-- your condition."

"You just. Want to keep. Me to yourself. Don't you," Josh said, and Tyler put down a plate he was rinsing. Arguing never frightened him before, but the context was so bizarre he couldn't help but feel off-beat.

"No, I don't, Josh," Tyler said. He dried off his hands and left the sink to get closer to Josh, who had also stood up.

"Then why. Can't I go home."

"You never asked!"

"What if. I did."

"No," Tyler said, furious that Josh was twisting his argument around. "Because you're not well."

"I am. Well."

Tyler saw the anger in his eyes and he froze. He had known Josh for five years and he had seen him impatient, he had seen him frustrated and angry, but he had never seen _rage_. He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture to try and get Josh to calm down.

"Josh," he said. "Listen to me. I don't know what's gotten into you but _don't_ argue with me. You know I'm right."

Josh sprinted for the door.

Tyler just managed to catch him in time, sending them both sprawling to the ground, knocking over the coffee table along the way and sending a sharp burst of pain down his right shoulder as he struck it. Josh's weight bore down on top of him and squeezed out his breath, and all Tyler could do for several moment was gasp and stare up at Josh's furious face, mere inches from his.

"You're wrong!" Josh shouted, and the hands planted on his chest came around his throat and squeezed.

Tyler panicked, his arms flailing out and hitting Josh's sides and back and ripping at the carpet as he tried to buck him off his body, but there was an unnatural, nearly superhuman strength in Josh's muscles, one Tyler had never felt before and he wondered if something had gone wrong with his nerves when he took out his adrenal gland along with his kidney. He couldn't breathe. His blood wasn't moving. He could feel his face heating up and it felt as if his eyes were going to burst from his skull--

Tyler touched something cold on the carpet. Despite the haziness in his head from the lack of oxygen as Josh continued strangling him, eyes steely with single-minded rage, he knew exactly what it was. He gripped the scalpel and stabbed Josh's arm with it, dragging the blade through his flesh, starting at the outer side of the middle of his arm and slicing horizontally until the blade slipped from his arm and shallowly buried itself in the soft tissue of his ribs.

Josh's face crumpled and he let out a choked, pained sound, one that chilled Tyler to the bone. Josh curled and collapsed, blood gushing from the wound and staining his shirt and soaking into the carpet. He paid no mind to Tyler now, clutching at his right arm and breathing hard, teeth bared and eyes squeezed shut in agony. Tyler scrambled upright, rubbing his throat and staring at Josh in horror when he realized how much blood Josh was losing.

"Oh, shit," Tyler swore when he saw how the blood spurted out rhythmically.

He had hit an artery.

"Josh!" he shouted, hoarse and barely able to breathe.

Josh gave little indication that he heard Tyler and instead rolled onto his side, legs tucking up as he tried to curl around his wound.

"Josh-- Josh, are you okay?! Show me what happened, I'll-- I can fix it."

Tyler unfurled Josh, and he went without resistance, tears streaking his face as Tyler grabbed a few books from the bookshelf in the living room and stacked them under his wounded arm, elevating it so it wouldn't bleed as much. He raced to his room to retrieve his medical kit.

He messed up. He messed up so bad. But first he had to stop the bleeding. Tyler returned with the kit and took ahold of the bottom of his shirt and tore off a strip, grabbing a pen that had clattered to the floor and used it as leverage to twist the tourniquet shut around Josh's bicep. A healthy person wouldn't lose the limb, but Josh wasn't exactly healthy. Tyler prayed he wouldn't have to perform an amputation. That was even worse than setting a bone.

Tyler waited for his arm to stop bleeding. He had three bags of blood in the refrigerator. That should be enough to replenish what he had lost.

Tyler pulled his stethoscope from his bag and checked Josh's pulse. It was still there, as slow as it always was, and maybe it was Tyler's panic but it was sounding very, very faint. He yanked it off and considered what he needed to do. The bleeding was slowing, and once it all but stopped, he'd take it off and apply regular pressure instead. He didn't want to risk too much tissue death. Right now, Tyler needed to try and see how much blood Josh has lost. His nails were a little purple and an inspection of his inner lip and eyelid revealed tissue of a similar shade. He was unresponsive when Tyler called to him.

He needed air, blood, and stitches. Not only had Tyler hit a major artery, but he had lost enough blood and cut him deep and long enough that the wound wouldn't be able to safely close in time, more so given that Josh's blood couldn't clot.

Why did Tyler do this?

Tyler fetched the oxygen tank and ran to the kitchen to get the blood. There was only one pack left, and he swore, tossing out food as he searched for just one more. Where had they gone? He swore there were enough for a full transfusion the last time he checked. But there were none. He gave up and grabbed the single pack, leaving the fridge door open in his haste.

Tyler's fingers shook as he hooked up the tube and mask to the oxygen tank, strapping it over Josh's face and watching him breathe. It wouldn't do him any good if he didn't have any blood, though, and he got to work attaching the blood bag to the tube before remembering that the blood had to be warmed before being administered.

"Fuck!" Tyler shouted, "Fuck!"

He continued screaming as he ran back to the kitchen to microwave a bowl of water to heat it up, racing back to start cleaning the wound on Josh's arm as he waited. He wanted so badly to hold him, to beg for forgiveness and kiss his cheeks, but he knew he could hold him as he sewed him back together. Saving his life would be his apology. The final knots of his stitches would mark his skin as tiny black kisses that held together the edges of his attempt to make amends.

The microwave beeped. The water bath was ready.

Tyler dunked the blood bag in the warm water and snapped on a pair of gloves. He knew he was working like a scatterbrain but he was panicked, Josh's life depended on him yet again and he couldn't have his second death on his hands either.

He began tying the stitches, breathing in and out as he tried to calm his heart and steady his hands. _He's not going to die,_ he told himself as he made knot after knot. _Not again. Not by my own hands._ The pattern was crooked and the knots were uneven, but his wound slowly closed, and the bleeding with it. The ugly red-pink-white of Josh's flesh began to disappear, hidden behind a small, winding line.

He wrapped the cut in gauze and taped it down, heaving a sigh of relief and wiping away the bullets of sweat that had collected on his brow as he worked. He untied the tourniquet, running a sorrowful hand over the indentation the fabric made in his skin.

Josh was still unconscious. Tyler touched the bag of blood; it was ready now. He pulled it from the bowl and hooked it up the the clear plastic line, holding out his arm as he gently pierced his vein, watching as the thin red line slowly traveled through the tube and into Josh's body. Tyler sat back and finally let a few frantic tears slip down his cheeks and let a few frantic, muttered apologies slip out on the off chance Josh could hear him and would forgive him.

The pint was gone quickly, and Josh was still pale and unresponsive. Tyler considered his options as he unhooked the line and tossed the bag away.

There wasn't enough time to call Mark and arrange something. There wasn't any more blood.

Wait. Josh was AB positive. A universal recipient. Tyler was a Type O negative. A universal donor.

Tyler eyed the plastic line, dotted with residual blood.

Fuck it.

Tyler attached a needle to the other end of the tube and wrapped the fabric of Josh's tourniquet around his own bicep. His blood pressure was high from the stress, and an artery bulged quickly. Tyler pushed down his apprehension and pushed the needle in, feeling it burn as it punctured his skin. He deserved the pain. He breathed out, feeling the blood leave him, traveling down the line and into Josh.

The pounding in his ears subsided as he watched Josh breathe, watched him drain his blood. He breathed in and out, growing lightheaded as he bled and bled, hunched over Josh's body as he waited.

A finger pressed to his neck some minutes later revealed a steady pulse. Josh's eyes fluttered when Tyler touched him. Hope rose in Tyler's chest.

"Josh?" he asked, leaning forward.

Josh didn't react. False alarm.

Tyler sat back, sighing and pressing his back into the wall. The blood loss must have done something to his brain. Would he have to shock him again? Would that even do any good? His heart was beating. He was breathing. He responded to touch.

Tyler peeled back his eyelid and waved a finger in front of his eye. Josh's eyelids twitched and his pupils dilated.

"Josh?" Tyler asked again, and leaned over him again.

Josh's whole body shuddered and he gasped beneath his mask. His eyes roved left, then right, then up at Tyler.

Josh wheezed, eyes blinking at different speeds. Tyler reached up to put a hand in his sweaty hair to comfort him. Josh's uninjured hand went up to try and catch it, wavering and missing several times before grasping his wrist, terrifyingly strong, and for a moment Tyler feared Josh would attack him again. The plastic tube clattered as it brushed back and forth across the floor. Josh fixed his eyes on Tyler as he struggled to free himself from his grip, and he could see that his pupils were different sizes, scleras bloodshot.

"Josh, let go of me," Tyler said. Josh didn't say anything, still staring at him, and his eyes glimmered with the light from the bulbs above.

" _Josh,_ " he protested.

When he didn't cooperate, Tyler unpeeled Josh's hand from his wrist finger by finger until his limb was free. Tyler hissed and rubbed his wrist. It was definitely going to bruise.

Josh looked up at him blankly, his mind suddenly free of the insanity that had swallowed him just moments before.

Tyler swallowed, and his throat ached.

"You..." he began.

He tried to stand up. The exertion made him lightheaded, and his vision darkened as he fainted and collapsed to the floor.

* * *

Tyler woke up some hours later, a small puddle of dried blood on the ground. The line connecting him and Josh had been pulled out. Josh himself was nowhere to be found.

Tyler groaned and sat up, head spinning. He was grateful that his end of the line had been taken out, because he would have bled to death otherwise. He wasn't sure if it simply came out when Josh escaped or if he stopped and took care that Tyler didn't bleed to death. He hoped it was the latter.

It was dark outside. It had been eleven in the morning when the ordeal occurred, and the sun set early in the winter. With great effort, Tyler got off the ground and stumbled over to the clock he hung in the living room. It was eight at night. He had been unconscious for a long time.

"Josh?" he called.

There was no response.

"Josh?"

Tyler turned on the light in the hallway and studied his house. Josh wasn't in the bathroom or his bedroom. Tyler leaned against the wall and shuffled down to the living room, breathing hard from the exertion. Josh wasn't there.

So where was he?

Tyler returned to the living room and realized that Josh's shoes were gone from in front of the door. Looks like he went out after all.

"Dammit," he mumbled. Josh was gone. He was far too weak to go out and look for him. How much blood did he even give?

He needed to eat and drink before he could do anything else.

Tyler stumbled over to the kitchen, grabbing a cup and a plate and opening the fridge, looking to see if there was anything in there that was easy to digest and not spoiled.

Tyler dropped the dishes.

There was a severed arm in the fridge.


	3. Contre soi-même

Tyler stumbled backwards, stepping on broken ceramic as the door of the fridge closed on him. Oh God. He had seen countless severed limbs on crime scenes he had been called to clean up, but he had never been a _part_ of one before. Especially knowing who had done it. Oh, Josh.

The rotten breath. The lack of appetite. The disappearing blood packs. The mutilated bodies Tyler had been cleaning up so often. Of course he was eating them-- the tooth marks on the raw edge of the arm said everything. Of course. How did he not realize?

Tyler straightened out and swallowed. He needed to work up the courage to open the fridge again. Josh had clearly left it there as a message. But what was he trying to say?

Tyler's shaking fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the handle and tugged, and Tyler, with great hesitation, took the severed arm by the wrist and set it on his counter.

The flesh wasn't cool or warm, meaning it had been placed there fairly recently, which also meant that Josh had killed his victim very recently. How long had Tyler been unconscious? And, more importantly, how long did it take for Josh to make a kill?

Tyler set the arm on his counter and began studying it. The hand belonged to a man, if the flat shape of the nails and its size said anything. It was larger than his or Josh's, the wrist so broad he fingers did not meet when he grasped it's circumference. His nails were pink and hard and his palms were broad and calloused from work. This man was big, strong, and healthy. Josh had managed to kill him, and sever his arm with his teeth. Tyler could see the bite marks at the elbow where he had gnawed at the flesh with his perfect teeth.

Tyler imagined Josh killing with his bare hands. How did he do it? Did he strangle them, or rip out their throats, or did simply beat them unconscious and then eat them alive? Tyler didn't want to know but the vestigial doctor in him did.

He never wanted this. He just wanted to save his friend. Josh used to be so kind.

* * *

"Hey, Tyler, where were you on Saturday?" Jenna asked. "You didn't answer your phone. And what's up with your voice?"

Work. Tyler had to show up. He was on the verge of collapse and his throat was ringed with purple but he dragged himself out of bed in the morning, wore a high-necked sweater, and made it to his workplace, where the others were loading up the vans with cleaning supplies to the day's location: downtown Columbus.

He had entirely forgotten about the dinner party on Saturday. It was Sunday morning now and Josh was still missing and Tyler was still dangerously low on blood. Jenna didn't know that.

The worst part about her question was that she wasn't angry at all. Disappointed, yes, and maybe there was a hint of frustration in her voice, but it had no velocity.  
  
"I was, uh," Tyler began, thinking of how to explain himself without blatantly lying, "I caught a cold."  
  
"Oh," she said, and her face morphed again, this one to one of concern. "I'm sorry. I hope you feel better."  
  
Tyler thought about how cold the scalpel felt in his hands, how warm Josh's blood was in comparison, flowing over his fingers, how light Josh's gasping, collapsing body felt against the heaviness of his heart when he realized what he had just done. He thought about his dizziness when he bled himself to pay his debt, and how clear and determined his intentions had been when he connected their bodies.  
  
Tyler was certain that there was something inside Josh that was broken beyond repair.  
  
"Tyler?" Jenna asked, and Tyler realized he had spaced out.  
  
"I'm sorry about not coming," Tyler rasped. "I really did want to go."  
  
More lies.

He and the rest of the team loaded into the van to the cleanup site. He looked outside the window as the streets passed, pensive. He had no idea what to do now that Josh was like _this_.

It was only until the van came to a stop did Tyler realize just where they were cleaning up. Tyler had seen this particular shade of white stucco as well as he knew his own skin, and he had leaned over the edge of those wrought-iron balconies more times than he could count. It was Josh's old apartment.

The rest of the corpse must be inside.

Tyler prayed that it wasn't so, that he could ignore the truth that was starting to gnaw at him-- that Josh wasn't right in the head after what he had done. They climbed up to the third floor-- Josh's floor. Strike one. They went to the west wing-- the side Josh's unit was in. Strike two. They passed unit after unit until they came to the one at the end of the hall, and Tyler's fears were confirmed. Something _had_ happened in Josh's apartment. Strike three. Tyler was out. 

The landlord opened the door, and Tyler was immediately confronted with a familiar rotten smell.

The mess was largely centered in the middle of the living room, next to an upended coffee table. There was a body-- hollowed out and torn to shreds, sprawled on the carpet. It was a man, over six feet tall and burly, and his intestines were everywhere, some torn open, and his throat and face was mangled beyond recognition. Tyler got closer and realized that the right arm was missing.

The single slice of toast Tyler had managed to choke down this morning threatened to come right back up.

"You okay?" Jenna asked, noticing his distress behind the visor his biohazard suit.

Tyler gave a small little nod and closed his eyes, trying to compartmentalize. He was just here to clean up. He didn't recognize the apartment and had no idea who had done this or where the man's arm was. The position of the body in the living room was nothing like Tyler's own when Josh tackled him.

The blood pooling around the corpse had dried into a thick, brown paste, and Tyler could see little bits of gore scattered around, soaked into the carpets and sticking to the walls. Furniture had been upended and the drawers ransacked, their contents spilled everywhere. There were rotting bits of trash and leaves and twigs from the outside sticking to the carpet and the body.

"What happened here?" someone in Tyler's team asked.

The landlord shrugged. "Not sure. This morning someone complained about a smell and when I opened the door--"

He gestured at the destruction.

"--I see this. I call the cops and they came in earlier, looked around and took some samples. They wouldn't tell me anything. I don't think they know either. All I know is that I have to get this unit cleaned up again. I have no idea where the tenant is-- he's been gone for some weeks now."

"Think it's the tenant himself?" Jenna asked.

"No, he didn't look like that. I've never seen this man in my life."

Tyler was grateful that his goggles and mask obscured his face. He clutched his rag tighter and tried not to scream. He had work to do.

His throat ached as he worked. It had swollen overnight, and he could barely breathe. The pain and the tightness was aggravated when he smelled the bleach and the blood.

"What do you think this is?" Jenna asked, edging closer to him.

Tyler shrugged.

"I mean, look at those tooth marks," she said, pointing at the burst stomach and the severed stump where the man's arm was. "Looks almost like an animal did this."

Tyler swallowed.

"Not an animal," he said.

* * *

Tyler hadn't cleaned up the mess in the living room for two days, instead choosing to flop onto his bed on Sunday evening. His couch smelled like Josh and he wanted to be as far from any reminder of his old friend as he could at the moment. He was still gone, and Tyler couldn't bear the terror. Something in him knew he'd come back. That something didn't know _why_ he'd return.

He messaged Mark. Tyler couldn't find the strength to feel any resentment towards him. Not after what happened. 

 

_Mark._

_You were right._

Sent by Tyler at 5:45 PM

 

_??_

Sent by Mark at 5:47 PM

 

Oh, sure, he only responded when he admitted that he was right. But Tyler was too tired to feel angry. He was just glad someone was answering.

 

_He went crazy. I don't know what happened. But he attacked me yesterday. He was going to kill me._

_I managed to grab my scalpel and get him off of me but I cut an artery. I managed to stitch him up in time but there wasn't enough blood for me to do a proper transfusion._

_He's been drinking the blood packs, Mark. There wasn't any left when I tried to get some more. I didn't notice until then that they were all disappearing._

_I gave him my own blood. I passed out after that and when I woke up he was gone. I checked the fridge for something to eat and that's when I found the arm._

Sent by Tyler at 5:52 PM

 

Mark called him.

"Tyler," Mark said, and his voice was trembling with panic. "What the _fuck_ is going on!?"

"I don't know," Tyler said.

"Dude, what happened to your voice?"

"He strangled me. He's gotten a lot stronger."

Mark paused for a moment, and Tyler could hear him trying to get his breathing under control over the speaker.

"Mark?"

"I'm still here, Tyler. I just... wow. You have to call the cops."

"I can't," Tyler said, because he'd go to prison too.

"Tyler," Mark said, and the frustration in his voice was barely restrained, "you _have_ to tell them. You said you found a fucking severed arm in your fridge. People are dying."

"And the rest of the body in Josh's apartment. I got sent to clean it up today."

"Oh, God."

"Listen, Mark. I think I can still help Josh. I mean, what are they going to do to Josh if I tell the police and they catch him?"

"Send him to jail?"

"He'll most likely be institutionalized for the rest of his life. No one will know how to take care of him. He doesn't deserve a life like that. He belongs with me."

"Tyler--"

"Don't. He does now, now that I did that to him. He's my creation just as much as he was his parents'. He's different now. He can't be like everyone else anymore. Just hear me out."

There was silence on the other end of the line and Tyler took that as permission to keep talking.

"I don't want him to suffer like that. He's-- he's disturbed, and he needs someone he knows around with him. I can fix him."

"You can't _fix_ him, Tyler, you didn't fix him the last time. He honestly would have been better off dead than what he is now, for God's sake. He's a fucking cannibal."

"Don't tell me you don't want a cure for death."

"This isn't a _cure_ , Tyler, and death doesn't need one. I'm not going to keep arguing about this because it's not important right now. What's important is that you catch him before he kills anyone else--"

There was a yelp on the other end of the line and the sound of the phone clattering to the floor.

"Mark?" Tyler asked.

There was no response.

"Mark?!"

The line went dead.

Horrified, Tyler carefully set down his phone. That was Josh. It had to be. He knew where Mark lived and he knew Mark didn't like what had happened to him. 

Tyler, however, didn't know where Mark lived. Searching for his name online revealed no address. He couldn't call 911 on the behalf of a location he didn't know.

He dialed Mark. No one answered.

 

_Mark? Are you still there?_

_Mark?_

Sent by Tyler at 10:23 PM

 

There was no response.

 

_Josh. I know it's you. Leave Mark alone._

Sent by Tyler at 10:25 PM

 

There was no response. Tyler could only wait and sleep.

Tyler turned so that his back was against the wall and wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. He had to sleep. He had to sleep.

* * *

 

There were... wet sounds. Coming from the living room.

Tyler's eyes fluttered open. He was exhausted and had somehow managed to fall asleep despite his terror. He checked his phone and it was two in the morning.

Tyler turned on his lamp as silently as he could.

There was a thump, a loud one. Someone was definitely inside.

Tyler got out of bed as silently as possible, grabbing his scalpel from his nightstand. It wasn't much, but it was solid steel and he had dealt plenty of damage with it before. It had managed to incapacitate Josh the last time.

He crept down the hall, and there were more strange, slimy sounds. And chewing. Tyler wrapped his hand around the corner to turn on the light and flood the room.

Josh was kneeling in the middle of the living room over a bloodied leg. Tyler recognized the shoe. Mark.

There was nothing Tyler could have done to prepare himself for the sight. Tyler dropped his scalpel in shock and it clattered against the floor. Josh, who had momentarily been dazzled by the light, whipped his head around to the source of the noise.

He looked terrible. He was covered in cuts and bruises, and the stitches Tyler had made in his arm were ripping loose. His hands and mouth were stained with blood and his clothes were torn and equally bloodied. His eyes were bloodshot and one blinked more slowly than the other. He could see his chest rattling as he breathed.

Tyler's throat seized up. He couldn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

"Tyler," Josh said, the piece of flesh hanging from his mouth falling to the floor with a wet splat.

Tyler backed away. He was going to die like this. Nausea rolled in his gut and it overcame him. He didn't dare take his eyes off of Josh as he weakly emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground, splattering onto his feet and ankles. He leaned against the wall, too terrified to move.

He could smell blood.

Josh got off the ground, leaving Mark's body and approaching Tyler. Now he could see the details of his face. Tyler shut his eyes. He didn't want to see his terrible but still-beautiful face.

Josh was even closer when Tyler opened his eyes again. He was so close he could feel his presence. It wasn't warm. Josh's body was coming apart. He could hardly maintain his metabolism. He was sick and probably in immense amounts of pain.

"Josh--" Tyler began.

Suddenly Josh seized, going totally stiff and collapsing to the floor with a loud thud. Tyler leapt back, terrified before he realized that Josh was having a seizure.

It didn't matter if he had killed two people and wanted to murder him-- Josh was in pain and needed his help. Tyler raced over to clear the area of furniture and other dangerous objects as Josh trembled and foamed at the mouth. Tyler wanted nothing more than to hold him still and safe in his arms, but he knew he had to let Josh's seizure end. He stood back as Josh finally finished shaking.

He crouched down to turn Josh over on his side so he wouldn't choke on his vomit. He grabbed a towel from the kitchen and cleared away the contents of his mouth, wiping away the bloody spit. He wasn't sure if the blood was his own or Mark's. He tried not to dwell on it.

Josh's eyes were half-open and unfocused, and didn't respond when Tyler waved his hand in front of his line of sight. He did jerk away when Tyler prodded his wound, though, which meant he wasn't paralyzed.

Tyler felt his head spin as he considered his options. He couldn't let Josh out again. For his own safety and for everyone else's.

His lethargy gave Tyler an opportunity to secure him. He grabbed a chair from the dining table, and went to his closet to take a handful of zip ties. With great effort, he lifted Josh up, smearing some of the blood on Josh's hands and mouth onto Tyler's clothes and skin and he shuddered. That was Mark's blood and gore. He had paid the price of this, and he was certainly too mangled for anyone to ever put him back together and bring him back to life.

He positioned Josh in the chair and began securing his hands and feet with the thick plastic ties, using three on each limb and making sure he couldn't slip or force himself out of them when he wasn't looking. He took an extra cable he had lying around and tied it around his waist. He knew Josh would try to escape.

Josh was secured in a few minutes. His eyes were moving beneath his lids now, which meant that he'd come to in a little while. Tyler pulled out a chair and set it up across from him, sitting on it for a few moments to closely study Josh.

Tyler was surprised at how quickly Josh's condition had deteriorated. It had only been a day and a half since he left and Josh had run himself ragged. He was absolutely certain that that was not his first seizure, either. What had he been doing in that time? He needed blood and he needed antibiotics. But Tyler wasn't sure where to get more blood. He was still weak from his last direct transfusion and he had obviously lost his connection to the blood bank.

Oh, Mark. Tyler glanced at the leg dropped in the living room. He still had the arm from the stranger Josh had killed on Saturday. What on earth was he going to do with these gifts? He didn't know what to do with it. He couldn't just throw it away. He was certain that the rest of his body was either in Josh's stomach or in his home, but returning it like he wanted to do would bring Tyler himself into the investigation when they found foreign fibers on it.

Tyler wondered if he'd clean up Mark's body tomorrow.

There was a gasp, and Josh coughed and raised his head.

"Tyler," he said, and he tried to move before realizing that Tyler had bound him. "Kill me."

Tyler froze. "What?"

"You. Heard me."

"No. I don't want to-- I don't wanna kill you," Tyler said, and his chest felt like it was crumpling. "You're my best friend. No matter what you do. I could never hate you."

Something in him was frustrated the way a parent was with a petulant child. Tyler had seen enough death to know that life was the greatest gift of all, and Tyler had managed to catch his fleeting soul in his hands and weave it back into his body. Now he was using his gift to kill. 

"You should. I tore. His throat out. I couldn't stop. Myself. And I. Am alone."

"Why do you eat them, Josh? Why did you come here?"

"I. Want no-- nothing else."

A tear slipped from Tyler's eyes and ran down his chin. Josh's eyes attempted to follow it but strained and failed.

"Stop killing, Josh," Tyler said, because that was the only thing he could think of saying.

"I can't. You made me. Like this." 

"Please. For me. Stay. I can fix you."

Josh shook his head and the motion was erratic and jerking. "No."

"You're dying, Josh, what don't you understand? You're mine. I can make you healthy again if you stay with me."

"Let me. Die alone."

"You're just going to kill more people if I let you go, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Tyler buried his face in his hands and let out a shaky sob. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ground and weep, but he needed to act. He sorted his priorities to try and figure out what to do next. First, he would need to take a gauge of his health. Then he'd deal with all the emotional things later. He got up, leaving for his room to find his medical kit and distract himself with it.

He took Josh's blood pressure. Checked his red blood cell count. Measured his heart rate and checked his lungs for blockage. He tested his reflexes and response time. He took his temperature and inspected his stitches. Josh cooperated, though Tyler was terrified that he would lunge and bite his throat.

It was just as Tyler suspected. He was low on blood again. It seemed that Josh wasn't able to make new cells. It would explain the strange way his skin was beginning to wrinkle in the folds of his joints.

"You need blood," Tyler said.

"What. Do you-- you think. I've been. Doing."

Josh needed blood. Josh _needed_ blood. He would lose Josh again if he didn't get more.

"Tyler," Josh whispered. Tyler, who was cleaning up the line and the bag, looked up.

"What is it, Josh?" 

Josh wiggled against his restraints. "Let me. Out, please."

"Are you going to escape again?"

"No. Promises. I cannot con--control my. Hunger."

"Then the answer is no."

"Do you. Love me, Tyler."

Josh's jaundiced eyes fixed on Tyler's and blinked, one before the other. Tyler swallowed.

"Yes, Josh. More than anything else." 

"Then. Let me. Be what I am. And let. Me die."

This was the third (fourth? fifth?) time Josh had demanded to die and it made Tyler's heart ache more every time he heard it. He could take it no more.

"You don't deserve to die," Tyler huffed, "you're going to stay here, with me, and not eat anyone. I can get you blood but nothing else. You fucking _killed_ Mark, Josh, does that not mean anything to you?" 

Hot, furious tears spilled from his eyes and dripped down his chin. He can't do this. He won't let Josh out when he had him in his grip.

"I need. To eat."

"No!" he continued to shout. "No, you don't have the right to take lives!"

"Would you. Rather I waste. Away. In this chair."

"I don't know what I want, Josh," he said. "I just want us to be happy."

"You don't. Want me to kill. Then you. Do it."

Tyler lifted his head from Josh's knees.

"I-- what?" he asked.

"You think. I am a-- am a savage. How I tear. Them apart."

Josh swallowed hard and took a few breaths before continuing.

"But you. Can kill quick-ly. And painlessly."

What on earth was wrong with Josh.

"I'm not killing for you, Josh," Tyler said.

"You eat. Meat. Same thing."

"I don't do the killing. Just the eating. No, I'm not doing that."

Their argument was going nowhere. Tyler needed to show Josh he did want to live.

Tyler didn't own a gun, but knew his way around small blades. He took out his carving knife from the knife drawer. He walked back to Josh and drew his chair up closer, showing Josh the blade.

"I can make this painless for you," he threatened. "It'll be quick. For you and me."

Josh closed his eyes and tilted his neck back, waiting for the knife.

Tyler brought the knife up to his neck, pressing the edge into the side of his throat. He tilted the blade to get a better angle, and caught his reflection glinting off it. He saw his own face; eyes flinty, mouth set into the stoic line of a surgeon's.

He dropped out of medical school because doctors saw no issue with death. But he did. As a student he had observed countless failed surgeries and C-sections and saw the looks on the surgeons' faces when someone died. Hard, flat, and cold. Like their patients were just pieces of meat and they the gentle butchers. In this moment, Tyler found the exact same expression.

He dropped the knife and it clattered to the floor. He couldn't do this.

"I can't," Tyler sobbed, "I can't."

He heard Josh shifting in his seat, straining against the zip ties.

"Then. Please let. Me out."

" _No_ ," Tyler cried. "Josh, no."

Josh let out a shaky sigh and closed his eyes, resigned as Tyler collapsed to his knees, clutching at Josh's bound legs. Tears soaked Josh's dark, filthy denim as he cried.

Tyler didn't know what to do. He left him in the living room, and Josh did not protest when he turned off the light, still tied to the chair, Mark's leg wrapped in plastic and stuck in the freezer next to the arm.

Tyler threw up in the shower when he washed Mark's blood off himself and felt a wave of nausea every time he imagined Josh's bloody maw working strips of flesh free as he ate, crouched over his corpse in the dark like a beast.

Tyler went to bed. He dreamed of a restless nothing, and he woke up before the sun, drenched in sweat. The house was silent, but Tyler couldn't fall back asleep after remembering what had happened the night before. He went out to the dining room for breakfast, and that was when he realized that the house wasn't quiet because Josh was asleep, dead, or submitting to his capture. Of course he had escaped and slipped away on the night. He had chewed his way out of the zip ties on his arms and used Tyler's abandoned scalpel to cut his ankles free. Tyler knew he subconsciously allowed it to happen. A part of him wanted it.

There were no body parts in the fridge when he looked, and somehow that scared Tyler more than their presence.

* * *

Tyler started carrying a knife when he went to work. He didn't know if it was his own paranoia of if Josh really had been stalking him for the last week. He was definitely responsible for several of the crime scenes they had been sent to clean up.

"Damn," Jenna said as they looked over a particularly gory scene. The young man had been eviscerated, and his entrails were spread out all over the floor like Josh had mopped the hardwood with them.

"I know," Tyler said.

He knew Josh was responsible for this. He could go to the police, but he'd incriminate himself in telling them who it was and why he did these things. Josh would also certainly reveal his name to the force should he be captured. For these reasons Tyler stayed quiet and hoped Josh remained at large. Selfish, maybe, but he was selfless enough in his work and his personal endeavors to make up for it.

"How's Josh?" Jenna asked as she ripped up the floorboards. "You said he was sick." 

The wood was raw, and had soaked up the blood completely by the time the cleaners arrived. It would be cheaper to tear it out and replace it than to clean it.

"He's okay," Tyler said, though that was obviously a lie. His hands were sweating beneath his leather gloves, worn to prevent cuts and splinters as they ripped up the floor and loaded them into a wheelbarrow. The bruising on his neck was not yet healed, and still caused him twinges of pain when he leaned over to work.

Tyler didn't know how he was holding himself together in front of all these people, in front of all this gore. He never minded blood and guts before, but now the fact that he knew Josh was responsible for the mess sickened something deep inside him. Josh had never been violent before, and he was always neat and efficient when he did fight at his boxing club, never inflicting unnecessary pain or indignity. But what Tyler was looking at here was desecration. Tyler shuddered.

"Chilly?" Jenna asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

Tyler stepped out into the garden during their break time. There was a little stone bench in the yard and he sat on it, gloves off, sanitary mask hanging around his neck. He looked at the rest of the neighborhood. The road was lined with trees that had gone barren in the winter, and a few dead leaves skittered across the sidewalk with the cold breeze. The houses were quiet during this time of day, their inhabitants either at work or school. Occasionally a car drove by, some slowing down when they saw the tape surrounding the house they were cleaning.

Tyler was about to go back inside when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. He froze and scanned his surroundings.

There was a dark... _shape,_  hiding behind the hedge across the street. Tyler wasn't sure if it was just a garbage bin or a person, and if it was a person, he wasn't sure if it was a curious resident or Josh. And if it was Josh, he wasn't sure if he was hostile or not.

The knife felt heavy in Tyler's breast pocket. He knew he'd have no choice but to defend himself should Josh attack, though he prayed that it would never come to that. Hopefully Josh would get tired and just come home. He wasn't sure what was supposed to happen after that, but Tyler figured that he'd cross that bridge when he got there. Reconciling with Josh already seemed like a goal too high to reach.

There was a paper bag on Tyler's doorstep when he returned home that evening. Curious, Tyler picked it up. He could hear the rustle of plastic inside the bag when he moved it. Something in him told him that it was better if he opened behind closed doors. He shut the door behind him and set the bag down on the dining table, not bothering to take off his shoes as he slowly peeled the bag open.

A part of Tyler had been anticipating it, but the rest of him recoiled in shock when he saw a severed ear, one brown eyeball, and a left hand and foot.

"Jesus," he muttered, tying it shut. This must have been from the body they cleaned up. Much of its face and its extremities had been severed. 

He put it in the freezer along with Mark's leg and the man's arm. He'd put it all together and bury it all in some remote part of the forest when he had the time. For now they would serve as reminders of Josh's existence. Just because he wasn't inside Tyler's home anymore didn't make him any less of a threat-- to Tyler or to others.

* * *

 

Tyler had been invited to Mark's funeral. He couldn't find the courage to go. Not while Josh was still at large.

* * *

Jenna called at six fifteen. Tyler had been attempting to clean his house when his phone rang.

"Hello?" Tyler asked.

"Tyler," Jenna said, and she sounded shaken. "There's a-- someone left body parts in front of my door."

Tyler's breath stopped in his throat. He was going after Jenna now.

"I didn't know what to do," Jenna continued when he failed to respond. "I mean, yes, I'm gonna call the cops but Jesus, what _is_ this?"

"What's inside?" Tyler asked, mind racing for a solution.

"Uh," she began, and Tyler could hear a bag crinkling. "An eyeball, an ear, and a right hand and foot. Hey, Tyler. This looks like that one body we cleaned up together a few days ago." 

The same parts as Tyler. Should he tell her he got the other half of the set? Josh was undoubtedly nearby. He didn't know what he was planning, however, and that kept Tyler from making a solid plan.

"Tyler? Are you there?" Jenna asked.

"Yeah," he said weakly. "Sorry, I just--"

"It's okay," Jenna said, and Tyler thought about the way his last phone call with a friend ended. "I'm just... really unnerved. I'm gonna call the cops now. Bye, Tyler."

"Bye," Tyler said, and he waited for Jenna to hang up before he dared put down his phone.

He went over to his freezer and took out the little bag of parts. He was going to bury these later, along with the arm and the leg because he didn't know what else to do with it. He snapped on a pair of gloves and took them out, laying them in a row on the plastic bag they came in on the counter.

Eye, ear, hand, and foot. Did it mean anything? Was there some sort of puzzle Josh wanted him to solve? Was he still capable of such complex thought? Even in his last life, Josh had been a poor planner. It might just be mindless savagery.

That conclusion created more questions. What was he planning to do? Why did he give the parts to Jenna? Was he going to kill them, or keep bringing these gifts?

Tyler couldn't stand not knowing. Josh had managed to attack Mark before he even realized he was in his home, and the chances that Josh was planning to do the same to Jenna were too high to safely ignore. He put the parts back in the freezer and went to his room to grab his jacket. He took his knife from his nightstand and tucked it into his breast pocket. He could feel the outline of the blade through the lining of his jacket, the two layers of fabric between the metal and his flesh agonizingly thin, the blade cool against his thrumming heart. He knew how easily the weapon could be turned against him, but he would be hopelessly outmatched if he didn't bring it. He didn't know where Josh drew his great strength from, but it was deadly and he did not tire.

He knew where Jenna lived. He walked briskly, knowing that if something was wrong, it was already too late for running to mean anything.

Her home was a one-bedroom unit in an apartment building near Downtown, nicer than his, on the third floor. Tyler entered the pass code and wondered how Josh would be able to enter the building without force.

He took the elevator and made it to her door. It was shut. Her key was not under the door mat, and the door was unlocked when he checked the handle. He closed his eyes, took a breath to soothe himself, and stepped inside.

Immediately he knew that Josh was there. The lights were all on. Chairs and tables had been knocked askew. Cups and plates had broken where a struggle had clearly transpired in the kitchen.

There was no body or any blood. 

Shit.

"Jenna?" he asked, stepping over broken ceramic. 

There was no response.

"Josh?" 

There was a faint scraping sound from the bedroom.

Tyler flicked on the hallway light and kept his hand over his breast pocket. Josh was in here. He had Jenna, and she might still be alive. 

The bedroom door was closed. Tyler opened the door quickly to get it over with.

Jenna was on the floor, bloody and bruised and her limbs all tangled the wrong way. Josh was kneeling over her, cradling her. There were several large dents in the drywall and he could see bits of bloody drywall in her hair and a strange dent in her still-moving chest that suggested broken ribs.

"Oh, God," Tyler groaned, and his stomach curdled at the scent of her blood.

Josh looked up at Tyler, and his eyes were soulless and sunken. One ear was torn and his left pinky finger was hanging on by a thread.

"Josh," Tyler managed to whisper.

"She. Will die soon."

Tyler's eyes darted between the overturned furniture and Jenna's body, the way Josh had a hand over her neck like he'd snap it should Tyler make a wrong move. She was a hostage.

"Are you going to eat her, Josh?" Tyler asked, choosing his words carefully. "Why her?"

"Because. I knew. You would come."

"Are you going to kill me?"

Josh shook his head. "I thought. About it. But for you. To die without. Under-standing would be. A shame."

"Understanding what?"

"You. Love me des-pite. Everything. But you. Have never seen. Me kill. You don't. See sense."

"I don't want to. And I'll always love you, Josh. Nothing's changed that."

H said the wrong thing. Josh tugged Jenna's head backwards and brought his mouth to her throat, and Tyler gasped as Josh sank his teeth around her throat and _ripped_. He could hear her windpipe collapsing and he felt the warm spray as her blood splattered Tyler's face and the wall behind them, pooling on the soft white carpet between them.

Jenna woke from her faint and he could hear her blood gurgling in her throat and see her eyes flashing. She twitched, flailing her limbs about as she lost blood, showering Josh in it, and Josh himself seemed utterly at peace. There was a serenity about his features Tyler had never seen before, not in his first life or the second. It was such a jarring contrast against Jenna's dying panic, like her pale blue eyes stark against the deep red that stained her whole body and seemed as if it would flood the room. The stench of blood, indignity, and her offal filled the room.

Tyler fumbled in his breast pocket and opened his knife, pointing it at Josh as if it would do anything against someone who had torn out Jenna's throat as easily as one tore envelopes.

"Josh," Tyler pleaded, holding out the blade to hold him back. "Oh, god-- Josh--"

"You did this to. Me," Josh said, and Tyler could hear the blood dripping from his lips as he spoke.

And now. Now was the main event. The killing was short, brutal but efficient. The desecration came after death. At least Josh's didn't you with his food, Tyler thought hysterically. He had never been a sadist.

Josh started eating from the wound. It was easier to expand the tear than to make a new one. Tyler made absent, terrified note of these things as he sank down to the ground, still clutching the knife as he watched in horror, unable to move.

He ate like a wolf. He ate quickly, like he was starving, and he jerked his head in sharp motions while holding Jenna's corpse in place with his hands as he worked his way down to her stomach, and he tore away the layer of skin and fat to expose the muscle just below her ribs, and now he used his hands to separate-- what Tyler hated to call-- the meat.

Jenna's eyes were still open and stained with blood. She was dead now, Tyler knew, but Josh turned her body on its side as he continued to eat, facing Tyler. Her dead eyes bored into his. _You could have prevented this,_ she said. _You should have killed him. You should have let him die.  
_

Tyler let out an agonized sound, closer to a whimper than a growl, and lunged for Josh, knife out.

The small blade buried itself in Josh's stomach as Tyler slipped against his blood-slick skin. He felt his knee dig into Jenna's spilled bowels as he tumbled over Josh and slipped on the floor. They stood up, having switched positions in the room. Tyler's back was against the small desk Jenna had in her room, and his fingers were slick with her blood and they slipped against the smooth edge. Through his tears he could see that Josh was clutching the wound in his stomach, sickly black blood oozing out from the small, jagged wound in his grey-yellow skin.

He found his words somewhere between Jenna and Josh's bodies. He could barely speak past his frantic weeping and his breath refused to come smoothly, but he eventually gasped in enough air to finally speak.

"I just wanted to make you happy," he sobbed, and when he opened his mouth he tasted Jenna's blood. "I wanted you to live forever."

"I have. Been dying for a. Long time. I wasn't supp--supposed to. Come back. I am. Between deaths. This. Is not life."

Josh crept closer and Tyler knew he meant to attack. Tyler leapt forward and drew back his hand to stab him again, and Josh's flesh was soft and giving as he dug into his bicep with the knife, and he felt Josh hit a wall as he shoved him, a tangle of limbs and blood and fear. Frenzied and blinded by his tears, Tyler sliced his own arm in the confusion and he screamed, curling around his injury. Josh took the opportunity and grabbed Tyler's hand, the one still carrying the knife. His cold, clammy fingers enveloped his own, and Tyler pushed harder against him, knowing that he would try to turn the knife around and stab him.

That didn't happen. Josh suddenly loosened his grip and Tyler went toppling forward onto Josh's body, the knife sliding between Josh's ribs and puncturing his lung.

Tyler heard it rupture, and he felt the puff of foul air escaping from the wound as Josh let out a terrible sound. Josh suddenly went limp, gasping and clutching at Tyler as he fell to the floor.

Their hands had stayed on the knife the entire time; Tyler's curled around the handle and Josh's folded around his knuckles. They were still tangled together and Tyler didn't bother moving away, too exhausted to scramble off of his eviscerated body. Josh, breathing hard, reached up with a shaking, bloody hand, flopping over the back of Tyler's neck and pulling him down. Before Tyler could jerk away, Josh closed the distance between them and pressed their foreheads together, breathing. 

Tyler dared open his eyes. There were Josh's eyes before him, and despite the decay of his scleras, the vibrant color of his irises stayed the same. For a moment Tyler could pretend that he was resting with him again, before everything had gone wrong. But he could smell blood, old and new, and he remembered that Jenna's corpse was just a few feet away, and in this light the tenderness was sickening.

Tyler freed himself from Josh's grasp, leaving the knife inside his chest. He shifted to the side and tugged him onto his lap, cradling his badly-wounded body in his lap. The way Josh held Jenna. The way he held him so many weeks ago as he desperately dragged him home.

Tyler could make out the faint sound of sirens in the distance. Tyler spotted Jenna's cracked phone under her bed. She must have managed to make the call, or a concerned neighbor had heard the commotion.

"Let them. Come," Josh wheezed, and he blinked slowly. "Do you. Und'rstand."

No matter who called, it was over. There was nowhere for Tyler to run or hide. Josh was dying. Jenna and Mark were dead. This was it. It didn't matter if he ran.

"Yes," Tyler rued, and with the admission came a whole waterfall. "Yes, I do. I was just-- I'm just so scared to die. Aren't you?"

Josh shook his head.

Tyler let out a nervous little laugh and Josh's eyes softened the tiniest bit at the sound. He wasn't speaking but Tyler could feel him, he knew what his malfunctioning brain was thinking. Josh was shaking again, and his eyes had rolled to the back of his head. A final seizure. Blood poured from his nose as he softly choked. Tyler reached out with his uninjured arm to carefully brush the hair out of his eyes, and up close, Tyler saw his jaundice, his dementia and his entire body collapsing underneath the strain of himself, the constant pain and the persistent, feral hunger that sprung up from his damaged brain. None of this was worth Josh's life. He should have buried him when he first had the chance.

Now Josh had stopped shaking and his eyes were closed. He was close to death, riddled with holes and spilling blood, Tyler clutching him the way he had been a month and a half ago. Only this time Tyler was the one who had done the killing.

Josh shifted slightly in Tyler's grip and Tyler felt his fingers weakly curling around the hem of his jacket. The sirens were getting even closer now, and Tyler could see the red and blue lights flashing across the upper corners of the walls when he dared tear his eyes away from the sight of the dying man (monster?) beneath him.

This was right. This is what should have happened so long ago. He realized, he saw, he finally understood that this was all him. This was his mistake. But it was everyone around him that would die for it. He wasn't sure whether to call him his saviors or his victims. The least he could do now was to give himself over. Not to execution-- death came cheap, he knew that better than anyone else, but to what?

_Just quietness._

"Josh, do you forgive me?" Tyler asked. This was the ultimate question.

He could hear footsteps pounding down the hallway outside. Josh had gone very still.

"Josh?" Tyler asked again, giving him a small shake as the police entered the room.

"This is the police, get your hands in the air!"

Josh never responded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You don't get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back wrong. This is the price you pay for resurrection.
> 
> -Nathaniel Orion G. K.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i hope you're liking this story. any sort of feedback is welcome!


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